


Bring her flowers when you take her home

by bellofthetolppl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dad!Bellamy, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Mom!Clarke, and a little angst i guess, and clarke is super cute when she sleeps, and they reminisce about the day he was born, baby boy is teething and he's annoyed and sad and weepy and bell is trying to comfort him, basically bellamy is just being adorable with their lil baby boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-03-21 18:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13747032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellofthetolppl/pseuds/bellofthetolppl
Summary: Bellamy Blake tries to comfort his baby boy who's annoyed and in pain because he's teething. While he's trying to lull him to sleep, he reminisces about the day Clarke gave birth and thinks about how cute she is when she's sleeping.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hey, guys! So, basically I tried to write some hurt/comfort but with fluff this time. I tried to have fun with this one and dad!Bellamy is a weakness of mine so I hope you enjoy it! Comments and kudos are much appreciated!

“Bellamy!” he heard Clarke’s sleepy voice calling his name and her gentle hand rubbing his shoulder. He was asleep on his stomach like on most nights and he vaguely registered the baby crying. With a careful squeeze of her hand in answer, he turned around and kissed her forehead.

“Got it. Go back to sleep” he mumbled as he raised himself up and headed towards their son’s crib. 

Clarke turned around, rolling on her back but with her eyes drooping and he smiled as he watched her mouth slightly open and a few sweet stands of blond hair spill on her forehead-she was adorable when she slept, most especially when she snored. It was his favorite thing in the whole wide world.

“Hey, big boy, what’s up?” he called out to his son whose face was scrunched up, his mouth open, crying with his fists raised in the air. 

Gus didn’t usually cry that much unless he was in real pain but with his teeth coming out, it was a real nightmare for him.

”You in pain, huh?” he asked as he picked him up and pressed him to his chest. The boy seemingly calmed down the minute he registered his dad giving him the much needed attention but he kept quietly sobbing as his head lolled to Bellamy’s shoulder. 

”It’s gonna be alright, I promise” he carefully kissed the top of his head, the messy curls, identical to his tickled Bellamy’s nose and he started walking around, biting back his own pain as he carefully tried to lull Gus back to sleep.

Kiddo was annoyed from not being able to get enough rest-he couldn’t eat enough, couldn’t sleep, woke up cranky and cried most of the day. 

Clarke was at her wit’s end yesterday when Bellamy came home from his guard shift and found her walking around the cabin in a much identical way as he was right now, trying to calm Gus down as he cried his whole self out. 

Bellamy still remembers how sweet and sad they both looked-Clarke was lacking sleep herself, especially in the past few weeks since this tooth torture began and he was worried about her. About both of them. 

The birth hasn’t been easy for her, it was actually one of the scariest days of his life. Everything had seemed alright, there were no problems throughout the pregnancy and though they warned her that her first birth is going to be painful and hard, he hadn’t expected her passing out suddenly and losing consciousness in the middle of pushing up. 

Bellamy takes a deep breath and pushes Gus’s head to his shoulder as he dives back into his horrible memories.

_He was quickly escorted out of the room after Clarke passed out while Abby explained that she’ll have to take the baby out on her own and it that will be fine but he didn’t miss the worried look she gave Jackson while ordering him around and the ever slight tremble of her lips._

_He had spent the next hour outside the room, pacing nervously while Kane struggled to take his mind off all the scary thoughts going around his head. When they finally heard the baby cry out, he could swear his heart stopped for a second. Soon after that Jackson got out and smiled, informing him briefly that it was a boy, before he was called back by Abby’s seemingly high-pitched worried voice and Bellamy went back to worrying all over again._

_Five hours later he was finally let in the room again, after almost going completely insane, only to find his wife laying unconscious in bed and their little kid wrapped up in a tight white bundle, sleeping soundly in one of the old Ark cribs next to her._

_“She lost a lot of blood” Abby explained as he made his way to Clarke and immediately grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly, though she was heavily sedated and wouldn’t wake up ”There’s a risk of infection so we have to keep her here. It will be a while before she recovers.” he looked up at her with teary-stained cheeks but held on to Clarke’s hand as if his life depended on it._

_“She’s going to be alright” he announced determinedly and stared back at her._

_“Bellamy, there’s a possibility she-”_

_“She’ll be fine!” he had snapped back at Abby and immediately felt guilty. This wasn’t her fault, she was doing her best and this wasn’t just another patient for her-it was her daughter. She was as worried about her as he was._

_”Sorry” he mumbled and shook his head ”But I know it. She’ll never leave me.”_

_And he was right. She didn’t. She stayed, fighting off an infection that left her bedridden and with high fever for over a week. Still, she persisted and throughout it all, she managed to wake up every three hours and feed their son._

_Bellamy never left her side of course, he found a permanent spot next to her and their kid. He did struggle between work, setting up everything in their cabin and making sure she’s alright but he never even once complained about it. He wasn’t doing anything special-it was Clarke who’d just given birth to their child and fighting to stay here with them._

_After three weeks spent in the infirmary, she was finally able to come home. Bellamy literally smothered her all the time and he had every right to-she was weak, really weak._

_She was wobbly on her feet and she still got fever early in the morning or late at night. On top of that she was nursing a baby and he was trying to take as much of the load off her shoulders as he could._

_Those first few months were quite torturous. Gus was a quiet baby most of the time but raising a child required tremendous effort and they were both trying to do their best._

_Bellamy worked his ass off, trying to get them absolutely everything they needed-enough rations for food so Clarke can eat more and stay healthy, washing dirty diapers every time he came home from work, taking extra shifts and going on trade visits with the Trikru villages, trying to find more baby clothes and extra blankets, chopping wood and bringing it home so they had enough stocked for the winter, finding Clarke a good winter jacket and Gus a suitable hat._

_He had a list, a list full of things he wanted to provide for his family and the problem was-that list was never-ending, because he added something else to it every goddamn day._

_It was only a matter of time before he completely burnt out and Clarke would never forgive herself for not noticing exactly how much strain he was putting on himself._

_Yes, he did work a lot but he always masked it so good and whenever she tried to force him to come to bed with her or attempt at pushing more food in his plate, he’d swiftly come up with some excuse how he napped earlier today in Kane’s office or how he ate a bunch of apples while they were out on patrol._

_And she believed him…she was stupid enough to believe him._

_So when Miller and Monty both came knocking on her door late one afternoon, to tell her Bellamy lost his footing while they were out on a scouting mission and went tumbling down a hill, she can’t really make sense of their words._

_She leaves Gus with them and rushes to medical only to find him semi-conscious on the same cot she was occupying only a few months ago, with her mom flashing a light in his eyes and Jackson trying to pull down an oxygen mask over his face while Bellamy’s hands flailed without any direction whatsoever, desperate to fight him._

_“I’m fine” he mumbles but Clarke can tell he’s not just by the sound of his voice._

_“Bellamy!” she doesn’t realize how worried she is until she sees the bone, his own bone, sticking out of his flesh and sees his dizzy disoriented eyes._

_Turns out he had really managed to fuck up his leg-it wasn’t just that he broke it in such a way that the bone was sticking out, he had completely blown off and twisted his knee, on top of that he had a concussion and his face was half-covered in blood coming from the wound on the side of his forehead._

_“Put that on!” she scolds him right away and places the oxygen mask back on his face. ”Oh, you’re in so much trouble, you’ve got no idea!”_

_He smiles. He manages to smile! And Clarke wants to slap him when she sees it, but she’s also a little relieved because God she was scared when she saw how bad it was._

_“The sexy trouble or the bad **bad** trouble?” he asks as he pulls back the mask from his face and makes a really bad attempt at winking and she slaps his hand away and pushes the mask back on._

_“Definitely the bad **bad** trouble.” she announces and looks back at her mom while her hand finds his and squeezes it tightly, much like his was a constant present after giving birth, searching from confirmation from her that things will be alright. _

_When Abby gives her a light nod, she exhales a little and turns back to him, her other slightly trembling hand cupping his cheek. It felt great to have something cold on his burning face, not that he’d tell her that._

_”You overworked yourself” she shook her head as she stared down at him ”This wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so damn bent on being a stupid asshole.”_

_He pulls at his mask again and before she can scold him he speaks up._

_“Don’t be mad” he begs and this time he’s not joking. He actually feels guilty for making her worry so much ”I just wanted to cross everything off my list.” he tries explaining because he’s well aware that he’ll lose consciousness soon, his head felt so heavy and his eyelids were drooping._

_“List?” she asks confused and he nods with a light smile ”Bellamy, what list? What are you talking about?”_

_“How about you put that back up!” Abby scolds and pulls the mask over his face again, throwing Clarke a look suggesting that she didn’t have much time left._

_“Pocket” he manages to whisper and looks down at his pant’s right pocket. Clarke looks down confused before she figures out what he means and digs her hand in there._

_“Oh, this could’ve been so much sexier if it wasn’t under these circumstances” he says lifting his head again and pushing the mask off._

_“Bellamy!” Abby scolds and places it back down again ”Stop this! God, you and Clarke are the worst patients.”_

_“That’s why we make such a good pair” he jokes but this time his head falls lightly to the right and his eyes start drooping._

_He’s almost passed out as Clarke digs out a piece of paper and though she’s desperate to open it up right then and there, she decides against it and shoves it in her own pocket. She stays with him until they get him in the operating room and gently runs her fingers through his messy curls until he’s completely out of it._

_Once outside the room, she starts pacing nervously and Kane finds her just a few minutes later._

_“He looked exactly the same just a few months back” Kane shakes his head as he pulls her in for a hug and she buries her head in his shoulder for a minute in desperate need of something to lean on when the person she loved the most was going through hell because of her._

_Kane rubs her back in a soothing manner and she lets the tears soak his jacket so that when she pulls away, her face could be at least semi-wet. She brushes away the last of the tears with her old sleeve and Kane squeezes her arm._

_“He’s okay.”_

_“He’s not” she disagreed ”He…he did all this to himself. For me. For Gus” she looked away and crossed her arms on her chest in a desperate attempt to ground herself ”All the extra shifts, the skipped meals, God, how could I have been so stupid!” she starts pacing around frustrated._

_“Clarke” Kane stands in her way and takes her arms ”This isn’t your fault.” she opens up her mouth to disagree but he’s faster ”No, listen to me, it’s not. It’s just how Bellamy is, he pushes himself to the point where he passes out because he can’t bear to disappoint the people that he cares about so much, but he’s also a grown man and he needs to learn that he can’t operate on full force 24/7.” he smiles a little after that ”If you’re asking me, you do have the same problem.”_

_She sighs a little and looks away again, knowing he was right but refusing to admit it._

_“Which leaves the rest of us to worry and look after you.”_

_“We’re not kids.” she protests quietly and he picks up her chin, looking at her eyes with love and worry._

_“No offence, but sometimes you really are.” Clarke chuckles at his words and lets him pull her in for another hug._

_When an hour later, Kane’s called in from the guards and she’s left sitting alone on the floor, with her back pressed to the wall, she remembers the piece of paper she got out of his pocket._

_She fumbles with it nervously once it’s in her hands again and when she opens it up and her eyes roam from top to bottom, she gasps and her eyes fill with tears once again._

_~~1\. Get the crib set, the clothes and bed ready for when Gus comes home.~~ _

_~~2.Bring Clarke extra food and have enough rations for her meds~~ _

_~~3.Trade your jacket for the new baby blanket.~~ _

_~~4.Bring her flowers when you take her home. (and apples)~~ _

_And on and on the list kept going, full of stuff he had planned to do and once he went through with them, scratched over._

_Her heart skipped a few beats because it wasn’t just ten or twenty things he had written, it was over a hundred. He was actually running out of paper, scribbling sideways and almost filling in the edges. There were a few thing left unchecked at the end._

_115.Go to the Trikru village to trade for winter pelts_

_116.Sew Gus a new toy_

_117\. Take Clarke out to see the stars_

_118.Get Murphy the ingredients for her birthday cake._

_She didn’t realize when she had started sobbing, burying her face in her knees and pulling them closer to her body, wondering how on earth did she manage to end up being married to the most selfless kind-heart gentle human being._

_The minute her mom had let her in back to the room, he was conscious and she threw herself in his arms, kissing him right away._

_“I love you! I love you! I love you!” she had whispered in his ear once they split to catch their breaths ”But if you ever again overwork yourself to the point of passing out I’m going to kill you!” he had smiled and when she moved away and waved the piece of paper in his face it quickly disappeared ”And no more of that!”_

_“No.” he shook his head stubbornly ”I can’t, Clarke.”_

_“Bellamy!”_

_“I’m not ever going to stop taking care of my family. Ever.” he says his hand finding hers again ”You won’t win this one.” she had sighed tiredly as she found a place near his good side and looked down at him seriously._

_“Fine. But then I make one too.” he raised his eyebrow in confusion and opened his mouth to argue but she clenched her jaw in this awfully stubborn Clarke princess-y way and he knew he was not going to take her mind off of this one ”We make a list and put it in the cabin and we do all of this together.”_

_“Clarke, you’re still not-”_

_“Bellamy!” she cuts him off when he tries to move up the pillows and he falls back with a dramatic sigh ”You do not get to fight me right now!”_

_“Always so bossy” he huffed and rolled his eyes in pretend annoyance ”I hope our kid is not as stubborn as you are.”_

_“Oh, please, you already know that he is!” she jokes as she pulls up his blanket and cups his cheek once again like she did before, leaning in closely to kiss his forehead ”I love you, Bell.”_

_“Love you more.”_

_“Are you seriously going to argue with me about how much we love each other? Seriously?” he chuckles and nudges her nose with his as he kisses the edge of her mouth and lets his head fall down on the pillow._

_“I won’t.” he promises and she relaxes. ”Come here.” he pulls her to his good side and she quickly finds a place under the blanket with him._

_His body, usually radiating heat, was now somewhat colder and she sensed him shiver just a little when she was pulling the blanket away so she can join him. And because it was always the other way around with them, she sighed and basically wrapped herself around him, trying to warm him up, knowing how much needs it. He smiled as he looked down at her, kissing the top of her head in gratitude-he knew exactly what she was doing and they didn’t even have to voice it out, because they understood each other so perfectly with every small gesture, with every grip of their hands, with every look._

Bellamy smiled, remembering that night while rubbing Gus’s back gently as he slightly staggered after making his fiftieth lap around the kitchen table and he involuntary sucks in his breath and tries to overcome the pain in his knee.

Gus, who was just about starting to calm down, suddenly whined loudly again and threw his head back at his dad. Bellamy’s heart clenched at the sight of his son, his bottom lip pulled out in a signature Clarke Griffin pout, the same pair of sad blue eyes staring up at him full of tears yet unshed but just about to. 

“I know, I know” he moved him up a bit up and down ”It hurts, I’m so sorry, baby boy” Gus opened up his mouth and wailed loudly while Bellamy struggled to shush him. 

He felt Gus wrapping his small hand over his index finger and the next thing he knew, he was shoving it in his mouth, trying to sooth his sore gums.

“Bell, come back here” he was startled by Clarke’s voice and he turned around to find her sitting up in the bed, with her hair a complete mess and the blanket dangled up in her feet. 

She had the tendency to make a mess out of it when he wasn’t there to hold her still or pull her to her chest-Clarke Griffin was a hurricane in bed. An adorable snoring hurricane, that is.

”You can’t keep doing this every night, I can see you limping already.”

“I’m fine” he promised but started walking back to the bed when he suddenly felt his finger scratch on something and stopped abruptly, a smile spreading all over his face, looking back at Clarke as if he’d just made the biggest revelation in his life.

“What? What is it?” she moved up from the pillows worriedly.

“I can feel his tooth” Bellamy announces and watches as a relieved smile stretches on Clarke’s face as well ”Good job, big boy!” he turns to their son who’s still a little pouty but when he sees his dad smiling he attempts at responding with the same.

”You have your first tooth!” he announces as if the world might start spinning backwards at the news ”He has his first tooth!” he turns to Clarke next and she chuckles at his enthusiasm. 

She loved seeing Bellamy so excited because he made such a great dad-he was gushing over every little thing Gus was achieving, rolling over, smiling, even crying, pouting, tripping his bowl over-she could only imagine what a mess he’d be when he finally walked.

“So I heard” she responds and stretches her hands ”Come on, come over here.” she pats the bed and he soon follows. 

The minute he lays down though Gus starts whining again-apparently he didn’t like the fact that his walk was interrupted. She carefully took him from Bellamy’s belly and pulled her shirt up

”It’s time for him to eat anyway” Bellamy smiled and helped her move up, shoving his pillow behind her back so she can be more comfortable, then he settled down next to her, prompting his head with his arm and staring at her lovingly. 

She never got tired of the way he looked at her while she fed Gus-with so much admiration and love.

“You’re beautiful” he said now as he did every time he got to see them like this and like every time she’d look away shyly. 

They stay like this in blissful silence while Gus keeps eating though fighting off with sleep-his eyes drooping with every passing second and soon he’s out of it and just resting peacefully, cuddling into his mom’s chest.

”I gotta get him those herbs your mom suggested that would help sooth him down.”

“We’ll put it on the list” she whispers back as not to wake Gus up while she stares down at him and carefully traces all the freckles on his nose with her finger, something she loved doing with Bellamy too.

“There’s no need to, I can do it first thing in the morning” she sighs and gives him a dead look. 

Ever since they agreed on hanging the list near the door and filling out stuff they had to do together, he’d been trying to find ways to get away with putting some chores down and just going straight on doing them himself without even telling her, which earned him a big scolding and a few days of no talking from her when she found out.

“Bellamy!” she huffs his name in warning and he raises his hands in defeat.

“Okay, okay, I’ll put it on the list, princess, I promise.” he quickly relents and she smiles happy to have won yet another fight with him as she slips down the pillows. 

He sits up, noticing her sleepy gaze, carefully takes Gus from her embrace and carries him back to his crib. When he comes back she’s already dozing off, but not completely and his heart clenches with love for her when she puts his pillow back down and pats for him to lay down next to her. 

He doesn’t dare fight her on it, though he’s probably not going to fall asleep again at all, but he pulls her up to his chest and fixes the blanket, wrapping her skinny cold shoulders around it and kissing her forehead once again.

A few minutes later he looks down and finds her drooling all over his shirt and slightly snoring. 

He smiles and bites back a laugh, thinking how a few years back, he never even thought he’d be here, he never even believed he’d live that long and now he had his son sleeping soundly in the kitchen and his life drooling all over him and he was happy. 

He was truly happy.


	2. Your rebellious genes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy comes home to find Clarke pissed off and his son in trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey, guys! I wrote a little bit more for this fic with Gus being a little older here now! More fluff!

Bellamy pushed the door of his and Clarke’s cabin open, finally glad that he was home for the day, but making sure to clean all the snow from his coat and shoes before he made it in, knowing how much it pissed her off if he wet the floor.

“Clarke! Gus! I’m home!” he announces his presence as if they hadn’t heard him walking up the stairs and yelling goodbye to Miller and Monty (sometimes they really didn’t, Gus tended to get too excited in the evening, jumping around, demanding his dad and mom’s attention especially after starting kindergarten this fall). 

Bellamy hangs his jacket up and turns around to enter the small living room that was…well actually more of a mix between a kitchen and a living room, only to find his son sitting on the table, dressed in his yellow winter jacket and Clarke standing with her arms crossed over her already significantly growing bump. 

Bellamy smiled at the sight of them-his son was pouting and looking up at his mom with the most innocent expression on his face whilst Clarke was obviously trying very hard to reason with him about something-God, she was so beautiful when she was pregnant, it made his heart flutter. 

Not that she wasn’t beautiful the rest of the time too, but there was something even more cute and adorable in the way her hair swung and her breasts grew alongside her stomach. 

Not as adorable when she was craving things like watermelon in the middle of the winter which posed to be a big problem for him but still…adorable.

”Hey, what’s going on?” Bellamy asks and Clarke turns around, her cheeks almost as flushed as Gus’s were, which meant he probably played around in the snow for too long again. He had a thing for snow. 

So did Clarke, but Bellamy assumed now wasn’t the right time to remind her of that. 

“Why don’t you ask your son?” she says pointedly and four-year-old Gus shrinks even further than he did before, staring down at his adorable little boots, grounder-made, a special present from Octavia. 

Clarke doesn’t do much to explain what’s up, just glares angrily and he can see how hard it is to keep herself in check now. 

They always made sure that whenever Gus misbehaved they would be an united front, talk to him calmly and explain why what he did was bad, then figure out a way for him to make penance for his actions, like help mom clean his room or not go out with his friends for a few nights, or miss a bedtime story. 

It always made Bellamy’s heart clench whenever he had to do this and he took a deep breath, bracing himself for the inevitable. 

“Gus, what’s wrong buddy?” he tries calming down the situation as he pulls up a chair and sits so that he be on the same level as him. ”Why did you get mom angry huh?” that earns him a kick in the foot from Clarke and a deadly glare so he clears his throat and he looks up helplessly at her, almost shrugging his shoulders in a desperate attempt to ask her what the hell he did wrong now but that just earns him a tired sigh and she pulls up a chair, following his example and settling on the other side of their son’s hanging from the table feet.

“I found him playing outside with Jasper Junior and Tessa Green” Bellamy swallows hard, bracing himself for the upcoming catastrophe, knowing that whenever Monty and Jasper’s kids were involved, Gus had surely gotten himself in trouble ”Eating snow.” Gus stiffens at the revelation and somehow stares even more intently at his boots. 

Bellamy sighs and gives Clarke a look, showing her that he’s got it from here.

“Gus, budddy, what did we talk about that” he begins and when Gus doesn’t look up he carefully picks up his chin and turns his head towards him ”Hey, look at me, kiddo” he tries to give him his serious face but Gus’s bottom lip pulled out in a single most adorable pout was crushing his heart in a million pieces.

”You’re not supposed to do that, you know it.” a single tear falls down Gus’s cheeks and he sniffles as he brings his small hand up and brushes away the wetness from his face ’Why did you do it, Gus? You’re smarter than that, I know you are.”

“I just…” he finally gathers up the courage to speak but it disappears almost as soon as it came ”I thought I could, cause Jas and Tessa were and I uh..-I-” he fumbles with the words, probably realizing somewhere at the back of his small brain that this wasn’t a really good reason.

”I thought it was food” he raises his voice, suddenly coming up with a better idea ”I got hungry so I decided to eat some” Bellamy bites back a smile and throws a look at Clarke whose angry expression is starting to melt away at the sound of his son’s explanations.

“We’ve told you you can’t do that, buddy” she jumps in and Gus finally looks at her as well ”Most of it is dirty, okay? And you can get yourself sick, because you’re just shoving germs down your throat and getting it all red and cold. “

“I know” he looks down ashamed for just a second before staring up his mom again and giving her his (technically hers) signature pout that Bellamy knew would probably end the conversation very soon. 

Clarke blamed him for being too soft and spoiling the kid sometimes but honestly? She was a lot worse in it than him. She’d relent faster than Bellamy for example when it came to Gus wanting just five more minutes before bed or begged for another story and she was a disaster when it came to refusing him sweet stuff, he kept saying he was adorable when he ate chocolate and Bellamy couldn’t argue with that but there were boundaries. 

Boundaries Clarke obviously didn’t know anything about when it came to her son’s sweet tooth.

”I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise.” Clarke put her hand over his leg and rubbed it in a soothing manner which practically meant that though she was mad a few minutes ago she was just an emotional mess now and it was up to him to be the bad guy. 

At least tonight. She could be scary when she wanted to.

“Hey, bud, did you see what you did to your face, huh?” he asks, staring at his son’s dirty cheeks, surely a result from eating that godawful snow outside. 

It hasn’t snowed in a week and with so many people in camp walking around all day, carrying things, doing work, smoking meet, starting fires, it really didn’t resemble the original white color of a snow anymore. 

“Yeah” Gus said, his voice going back to that desperate silent pitch that meant he knew he wasn’t off the hook yet.

“And your jacket?” Bell asked again, but not angrily, more like in a lightly scolding manner, he never scared the kid, he wasn’t that kind of person ”The jacket mom and I got you last week. The jacket she already washed and dried the other night because you stained it all up with the chocolate cookies? You see that?” Gus swallowed hard and looked up at his dad with the most guilty expression ever.

“Yeah” he glanced back down and stared up at the black stains on his yellow-blue jacket ”I uh…I got it a little dirty.’

Bellamy bit back a laugh…a little? God, this kid would make a great diplomat one day. He might take more after him on the outside, but on the inside he had the Clarke Griffin stubborn leadership material. It was already giving him a headache.

“Does this mean I won’t get a bed story tonight?” he asks while Bellamy’s trying to compose himself and figure out how and when did his kid get so smart already. 

One look at Clarke tells him all he needs to know-the greatest thing was that even after the kid was born they were still able to communicate with such ease between each other without actually talking-a skill he came to greatly appreciate in such moments. 

And well…during council meetings. 

She doesn’t want there to be a big punishment and he agrees-after all he didn’t run outside the gates like that time a few months ago and he didn’t try to hug one of Miller’s chickens almost squeezing it to death like he did last week so.

“Here’s the deal, buddy” he covers his son’s hand with his, it’s still so small, so gentle unlike his big rough calloused one ”You’ll still get a bedtime story” a big smile spreads on Gus’s face ”but tomorrow, you’re gonna help me wash that jacket and you’re off with playing in the snow until it’s dried up, alright?” his initial joy quickly fades away but after he looks down sadly for a few seconds he lifts his head up and nods in understanding.

”Great, now why don’t you go take those clothes off and run to the bathroom, okay? Daddy needs to change too and then give you a bath.”

“Can I get Ares too?” Gus asks brushing up the last few tears from his face with the back of his sleeve. 

Bellamy smiled as he threw another look at Clarke, waiting for her approval. Gus was crazy about their dog Ares-a big half-wolf, half-dog beast with fluffy fur and heart of gold. 

If Gus loved Ares, then Ares basically adored the kid. Ever since he was a baby, he’d sleep near the crib, lay on the floor while Gus was crawling, run to his side as he took his first steps, even wake Bellamy up when he knew something was wrong with him. 

They were basically always together to the point Bellamy had a harder time separating his dog from his son early in the morning before patrols than Clarke from his embrace.

After an approving nod from Clarke, Bellamy tells Gus to go get ready and they watch the kid rush to the bedroom to get Ares with him. A few seconds later the dog is already trailing behind him, barking in a sweet playful manner.

“God, that kid is going to be so much trouble when he’s a teenager” Bellamy utters as he moves up and places his hands on Clarke’s stomach before giving her a sweet kiss. 

He’s missed her so much.

“Yeah and you are dealing with him then” she whispers in his ear ”Those are all your rebellious genes.”

“Oh, please, don’t play innocent here. You and I both know that pout is all you.” she slaps his arm playfully before leaning in to rest her head on his shoulder. 

He could tell she was exhausted-being pregnant was hell, but being pregnant in the middle of the coldest winter in the last twenty years according to the grounders, was a living nightmare.

”Did you hear what he said? He sounded just like you when you are arguing with your mom and Kane on council meetings.”

“Ah, well at least we know that in case there’s another apocalypse, he can survive by eating snow and staying hydrated.” she looks up ”And don’t kid yourself, Bell, those are all my smart brains he’s inherited.”

“Ugh, you’re unbelievable!” he protests lightly and moves down to kneel near her bump he keeps caressing gently ”You’re gonna be on my team, right little girl? You won’t let your brother and your mom boss us all around, okay?”

“Bellamy!” she runs her hands through his messy curls ”We don’t even know if it’s a girl. We won’t know until it’s born.”

“Oh, it is a girl, alright. I have a feeling” he smiles when he feels the baby make a pretty strong kick which urges Clarke to lean on the table ”See, she’s agreeing with me!”

“No, she’s just making somersaults in my freaking stomach!” Clarke complains and he helps her sit down but remains kneeling, looking between her and the bump lovingly and Clarke raises her eyebrow at his wicked smile ”What?”

“You just called it a she.” his smile gets even wider.

“Oh, shut up!” she slaps his shoulder again and he chuckles before he moves up to capture her lips with his once again ”Hey, you know I’d love them no matter what the gender is.” she nods and leans on to rest her forehead on his ”But it’s definitely a girl.” she wants to protest again when they hear Gus’s loud voice coming from the bathroom.

“Dad!!! Come on, I think Ares wants to bathe with me!” he sighs and moves away rubbing his thumb over her cheek one last time before he gets to leave and help their son.

“Duty calls” she smiles, in that awfully cute way in which she thinks he’s unbelievable but still finds him to be the sweetest kindest human being and once he disappears behind the bathroom door, she stares back at her bump and rubs it gently.

“A girl, huh?” she says to herself ”Judging by the way you’re kicking me, you’re going to love playing soccer with your dad and brother, aren’t you?” she shakes herself as her heart fills with love, then she smiles and uses the table to help herself move up ”Alright, sweet girl, time to help mom set the table.”

A few months later while Bellamy’s pacing outside medbay nervously and Gus is staring up at his dad with his significant, this time worried pout, Abby comes out to greet them with the news that they have a girl and Gus was officially the big brother of a beautiful freckled-face, pouting little sister that would turn out to be his best friend and his favorite soccer team mate.


	3. Blankets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I didn't plan to add more to this fic, but it was requested in the comments if I could write Clarke getting sick and Gus being worried over her, so here's the end result. Comments and kudos are much appreciated!
> 
> Edit: Just the heads up-I might add more to this story seeing as it has become a mess of disjointed moments of their lives. Thank you all for reading!

Yet another reason, besides the snow, why Bellamy hated the winter, was the flu. 

Somehow, every goddamn time January came, Gus and Cassie always got sick, no matter how hard he and Clarke were trying to prevent it, giving them herbs and making them eat lots of fruit, so their immune systems could be stronger. 

It was normal, she kept assuring him, they are kids, they’ll get sick, but he still couldn’t stand it. He hated hearing his daughter cry and struggle to breathe and last winter Gus got such a bad cough that it turned into pneumonia and he doesn’t remember being ever that scared in his life, not even when Octavia had fallen down and hit her head really hard when she was four. 

This winter wasn’t much different, Gus and Cassie both got sick, but thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as last year and in about two weeks they were back on their feet, running around the cabin. 

Only problem was, that it’s been barely two days after Cassie was already feeling better that Clarke got sick herself. 

She usually did, she didn’t have a very good immune system herself and he was the only person in the house who never got it. “It’s because I eat all the time and actually use my jacket, princess” he had joked when he brought her home last night from the medbay. 

She’s been actually stubborn enough to refuse staying home and went to work with a fever, only worsening her condition in the process. With some help from him, she usually got back on her feet pretty fast, but these past few days he’s been involved in every hunting party there was, since the weather was a little better and they needed to restock on meet, so he wasn’t home all the time, making sure she rests.

He felt guilty now as he looked down at her, her head was resting on his chest, her forehead was sweaty, her nose was red and running and she was sleeping with her mouth open, because she just couldn’t breathe, but the worst was her cough, it made him shiver and reminded him of the one Gus had last year. 

He was worried this time, feeling that this wouldn’t go away on it’s own and with the back of his hand he touched her burning forehead, which only made him even more worried. 

Her fever should’ve broken by now but it was nowhere near getting there and when she coughed again loudly in her sleep and opened her eyes just barely, he tried to smile reassuringly and pulled the blanket up her back. 

She had sweated almost entirely through her shirt and he was already trying to figure out a plan in which he could get up and make her change when he heard a loud noise coming from the kitchen.

Clarke stirred in his arms and he slowly pulled away, placing her head on his pillow and heading towards their kitchen, where he heard the noise come from.

“Gus?” he asks confused when he finds his six-year-old son standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring down at a broken glass on the floor. ”What are you doing here, buddy, it’s the middle of the night?” he scolds carefully as he approaches him and Gus looks up with the most guilty and worried expression on his face.

“I’m so sorry, dad” he starts apologizing right away ”I just wanted to get mom some tea, I heard her coughing and she always makes me tea when I’m sick” Bellamy kneels down before him and his heart clenches at the sight of his son in his thin worn-out pajamas and bare, probably cold feet, not looking even a little bit sleepy.

Gus was a carer, he’s always been. 

Clarke claims that he took that from him and Bellamy can’t really argue with that though he wants her to be wrong. He remembers the first time Gus did something selfless-Clarke was asleep on one of the kitchen chairs after having an extremely exhausting day and he had tried to bring a blanket over and cover her up. 

For the most part, he had succeeded and Bellamy had come home to find him struggling to fulfill his task, thus making his heart break. 

When his sister Cassie was born, he got really protective of her too. Thankfully, it was nothing like Bellamy has been with Octavia. Gus was smarter like that, he let her have her own adventures and experiences and supported her in them, like the first time Cassie tried to kick a ball or climb this fallen tree outside camp or roll in the snow. 

He was there and he cheered her up, but he was also by her side whenever she fell and started crying or every time the bigger kids were playing with all of them and sometimes accidentally bumped into her and she ended up falling on her butt. 

He loved her, he often said she was his best friend and that he couldn’t wait for her to be three so they could play more soccer in the backyard. Bellamy didn’t have the heart to tell him that she probably won’t be much of a player until she’s four or so but the fact that Gus loved spending time together with his sibling only made him happy and reflect on the way things were with him and Octavia and why they’ve always been wrong. 

“It’s okay, buddy” Bellamy assures and starts picking up the broken glass pieces from the floor ”Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Gus shakes his head ”Good, let me get this cleaned up and we’re getting you back to bed.”

“But dad I-”he tries again while Bellamy moves up to throw the broken glass in the trash and pick a cloth to clean the spilled tea from the floor ”Can I still go to mom?”

Bellamy sighs at the sight of his son staring up at him with pleading eyes. It would be dawn soon, he doubted the kid would sleep much more anyway, plus he liked falling in their bed next to his mom. Gus was a mama’s boy, no matter what Clarke said, he adored her to no end and she liked spoiling him (not that she didn’t spoil Cassie just the same, she was awful like that, especially when it came to sweets and he had to be the bad guy) and he loved sleeping between her and his dad.

“Okay, we will” Bellamy relents ”But only if you promise to be quiet. She needs to rest, alright?” Gus nods eagerly, a big smile spreading on his face before he drags out one of the chairs and climbs on top of it so he can be next to his dad while he fills out another cup of the tea for their mom.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Gus asks next as Bellamy takes his hand and they both walk to the bedroom.

“She’ll be fine” he promises, though he can’t be sure of that. 

The minute they make it inside the room, Gus lets go of him and rushes to the big bed, climbing in right away and looking down worriedly at his mom, who feels the stir and carefully rolls on her back and opens her sleepy eyes.

“Gus”she says his name tiredly and looks around a little panicked for a moment before she sees Bellamy come and put the tea on the nightstand next to her ”Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I wanted to make sure you were fine, momma” he announces with the biggest smile on his face ”Dad and I brought you tea, you have to drink it to get better!”

“You heard him” Bellamy says as he helps her move up and take a few sips. He settles down behind her and lets the upper part of her body to rest on his chest.

”How do you feel?” he asks her and she give shim a light smile.

“I’m good, better” she says but he knows she’s lying because he can see the sweat still covering her forehead and the flush of her cheeks and when he brings his hand to touch her face, he realizes she’s even warmer than before. Her entire body is radiating heat and he swallows hard, realizing he’ll have to get Abby here.

“Mom, blanket up!” Gus orders like he’s a real doctor and takes it upon himself to pull the blanket up her chest.

“You have to go back to bed, kiddo” she tries to reason with him as she slumps down even more ”Bellamy, you gotta-” a loud cough interrupts her and it lasts for a few minutes. 

With her back pressed to Bellamy’s chest he can feel the ugly wheezes vibrating through her entire being and he squeezes his eyes for a short second before moving up and helping her lay down on the pillows. 

“I’m going to get your mother” he says and Clarke opens her mouth to fight him but he gives her an angry look suggesting she can’t win this one, so she sighs and relaxes back on the pillows. 

The fact that she didn’t protest more like she usually did, scared him even more-she was bad and he was stupid enough to believe her last night when she told him she’d be fine. He should’ve brought Abby right away.

“Gus” he looks up at his son whose hands are holding his mom’s ”I’ll bring your sister here so if she wakes up, she’s not alone and scared okay? And then I’m going to go bring grandma, so she can check on mom.”

“Okay” Gus’s voice sounds a little scared but he’s not crying or trembling, no, he’s trying to make sense of what was happening and Bellamy hated doing this to him but he had no radio in the house right now and the only way to get to Abby was to go to hers and Kane’s place.

“Don’t be afraid, I won’t be long” Bellamy promises, already hating himself for having to do this ”Just a few minutes, alright? You can count to a thousand and I will be back home.”

“I’m not afraid” he promises with a light smile and Bellamy kisses his forehead and swipes the hand off his forehead before turning to Clarke and squeezing her arm. She opens her eyes for just a second and he tells her that he’s leaving and he’ll be home soon, but he doubts she actually registers his words. 

He wastes no time to get dressed and bring a still sleeping Cassie back to their bedroom, placing her next to Gus, who’s still sitting, perched on his knees and holding his mom’s hand.

When Gus is left alone, he starts counting, just to let the time pass faster and indeed he is a little scared at first so he tries to take his mind off the fact that his mom is really sick and his sister could wake up crying any minute now. 

He’s interrupted when his mom’s coughing gets even more violent than before and he squeezes her hand even harder.

“Mom?” he asks but her eyes are barely opened when her head falls back to the pillow ”Mom, wake up!” he asks of her but she doesn’t. 

He closes his eyes for a second and remembers what his dad told him about being afraid-that fear is a demon and you had to slay it so you can be free. 

He swiftly makes his way out of bed and goes to his mom’s side, grabbing the cloth and wetting it in the bowl full of water. Then he presses it to her forehead just like she did when he was sick.

“You’ll be alright, mom, I promise” he says but then he sees her shiver and his eyebrows furrow in confusion again ”Are you cold?” she doesn’t answer but he decides that she’s just asleep so she can’t really hear him.

”I’ll bring a blanket!” he announces happily and runs back to his room, grabbing the small blue blanket from his bed as well as his sister’s one, which was even smaller but could still work, he believed. On the way back to the bedroom, he trips over while carrying them but quickly stands back on his feet and rushes to his mother. 

“Here, you’ll be warmer now” he announces as he climbs up on the bed and starts covering her up, figuring that he can use his blanket to cover her legs and Cassie’s he tucks under his mom’s chin.

After that he feels helpless and because he doesn’t know what to do he settles back between his mom and still-sleeping Cassie and watches carefully out for both of them. He knows his dad is late, he should’ve been home by now and when his mom starts shivering and tossing restlessly under the blankets again, he realizes she’s still cold and uncomfortable.

He wonders what he should do for a few minutes and since he doesn’t know where to get more blankets from and even if they had more, he remembers how warm he feels when their dog Ares lays down or on top of him sometimes so he just does that-carefully, he climbs on his mom and rests his head on her chest, wraps his arms around her through the blankets and holds her tightly. 

“Here, you’ll be okay now” he tells her after kissing her forehead the way she did when he was sick and after a few minutes her body stops shaking and he smiles happily to himself, glad that he figured out a way to help her. 

Whenever she coughs, though, both him and her shake and he squeezes his eyes shut, praying for his dad to come home soon. At some point, he starts feeling really warm and comfortable too and his eyes begin to droop.

He doesn’t register when his dad comes home with his grandma, but the minute they see them there on the bed, they both stop and stare for a few seconds. Then Bellamy carefully peels Gus off his mother and brings him and Cassie back to their rooms while Abby checks up on Clarke. 

“Dad?” Gus stirs when Bellamy places him down on his bed after putting Cassie in hers.

“Go to sleep, kiddo. You did great.” he reassures and kisses his forehead while pulling the blanket up his chin.

“Is mom gonna be okay?” he asks as he feels his head lolling to the pillow.

“She’ll be fine, your grandma gave her medicine.” he promises and Gus feels himself nod as he dozes off.

A few days later Clarke’s already way better, but she’s still trapped inside under Bellamy’s, Gus’s and her mom’s orders. Her son keeps bringing her blankets when she needs them or reminding her that she has to take her meds and though she feels extremely bad that he had to see her like that, she can’t help but smile at how caring he was. 

“Come here, Gus, let’s sleep” she calls him in for an afternoon nap with Cassie already dozing off on her chest. 

Gus climbs up and cuddles on her right side while she pulls the blanket over the three of them and thinks how much she loves her life.


	4. Sunrises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey, guys! Here is another peak of the lives of Bellamy and Clarke as a family. This is a few years after the last one. Cassie's four already and Gus is ten. :)

He felt Clarke’s hands sliding down his chest, her head leaning in and her warm lips giving him a sweet longing kiss on the cheek, making his heart weight a little less than it was that late at night.

“You can’t sleep again?” she asks trying to hide the worry from her voice as he keeps on working on the wooden figure with his knife. He was making a toy, it kept his mind empty and gave him something to do with his hands, prevented them from shaking too much as well.

“Just needed a little air I guess” he lies as he looks up and tries to muster up at least a half-decent smile. His right hand leaves the knife and drops it in his lap before it moves up to cover the significantly big bump on her stomach. 

He’s already missed a big part of the pregnancy because of the mission that kept him away from home for months. She was due in just a month and knowing how eager their kids have always been to come to the world, he’d guessed it will be less. 

“You okay?” he asks, carefully caressing her stomach as he moves the wooden figure and the knife away on the table next to them and pulls her to his lap. She leans into his chest, which means she’s tired and she probably dragged herself out of bed just because she rolled over and couldn’t find him there and guilt washes all over him once again. ”Baby kicking too much?”

“No, he’s okay” she smiles as she nuzzles her head into his shoulders and slides her hand over her stomach intertwining her fingers with his over her big bump.

“Still so sure it’s a boy, huh?” he jokes, caressing her hair with his other hand while she shrugs and looks up at him lovingly.

“Cassie agrees with me you know. It’s you and Gus who are team girl.” Bellamy chuckles at that.

“Cassie’s four and Gus is apparently a masochist enough to want to repeat watching a Blake-Griffin girl go through the terrible twos” this time it’s her turn to smile and he carefully lifts her up so her legs can hang off the chair’s handle and he could keep hold of her better, knowing she must be uncomfortable just sitting in him like she was before.

“I guess he’ll be disappointed” she mummers quietly ”It’s a boy, I can feel it” she adds and reaches out for his wooden figure ”Apparently so can you. You made a similar one before Gus was born.” she grabs the figure from the table as he smiles and watches her hands go over the rough wood, it wasn’t his best work, but he’d try to fix it before their kid joined the world.

“I had one when I was a kid” he admits for the first time and her head shots up at him, surprised at the revelation.

“You’ve never told me that” he nods, still staring at their conjoined fingers tracing the horse’s head.

“It was my most precious possession. The only thing left of my father actually” he’s not exactly sure why he’s telling her that, but he was far too tired to even think about right and wrong anymore, especially at this time at night and especially after not sleeping decently all week.

“You never really talk about him.” she prompts carefully and he shrugs it off lifting his head up and staring at the still-dark horizon instead. The weather was warm, way too warm, even at this time of night, the summer heat was killing Clarke and he was planning to take her and the kids out to the river tomorrow, to maybe soothe her swollen ankles and her aching back. 

“There’s not much to talk about. I have a really vague memory of him picking me up from my crib and holding me to his chest” he tries to keep his voice nonchalant ”It feels more like a dream than a real memory at this point.” she listens carefully, not even thinking about interrupting him when he’s talking about this. 

He rarely even mentioned his dad and if Octavia did, he tensed and brushed it off way too quickly for anyone to even try and remember what they were talking about. 

Clarke never pressured him to go there. She’d asked questions of course,but seeing how painful it’s been for him and after one pretty bad snap from his side, she’d left it be. She’d figured he’d talk when he was ready. And after ten years of marriage the time has apparently come. 

“Mom didn’t like talking about him but she’d tell me he was really good at making stuff like this one” he tightened his grip on the figure ”Of course not of wood but anything else he could scrap up. I haven’t inherited those genes apparently” he tried to joke lamely and Clarke moved her hand resting up on his shoulder up in the back of his hair, digging her fingers and scratching his scalp in a comforting way.

“I disagree. This one is beautiful. So is Gus’s and you know how much he loves playing with it.” Bellamy shrugs and looks away as he usually did whenever she tried to give him some kind of compliment. ”What happened with your horse?” she asks leaning back on his shoulder and staring up at his face.

“Octavia broke it when she was about Cassie’s age” he smiled ”My mom haven’t seen me cry that much since I was a baby.” Clarke smiles a little sadly imagining little Bellamy watching his sister break his favorite toy and not being able to even get mad at her because he loved her with his entire being even at such a young age. 

“That must’ve been quite the scene, huh?” he smiled and nodded.

“Mom came home to me crying my ass out and Octavia hugging my leg, trying to apologize and begging me not to hate her. I still remember how wide mom’s eyes were whens he saw us like that.” she realized he was diving into the memories and let him have a moment to himself, choosing to drown in a comfortable silence for a while as the sky started to dissolve into a paler blue. 

The sunrise was one of her favorite parts of the day even if she wasn’t a fan of getting up early. But watching it with Bellamy? That was even better. 

She was glad they were here now, especially considering the fact that he hasn’t been doing well since he came home three weeks ago from the mission up in the Azgeda territory. 

There were some clans trying to split from the coalition and he was sent off with fifty more people from Arkadia and a bunch of Trikru soldiers to try and contain the situation. 

Whatever happened, it didn’t go well, because he came home bruised, battered and unable to sleep, haunted by nightmares that woke him up barely an hour after going to bed, eating less and less every day. 

It was weird for her to be the one going after him and shoving apples or bread in his hands, she was so used to him filling in that role. 

And it’s not like he wasn’t-he was still doing his best to be a perfect husband and father-he made sure she had lunch, brought her a jacket whenever she’d forgotten to take it, did homework with Gus, took Cassie from kindergarten, went to his guard shifts, desperate to do everything as he did before. 

The only problem was, it just couldn’t be. He was straining himself, the same way he did after Gus was born and he was worried sick over her and she feared he’d end up falling or hurting himself from the lack of sleep and food. 

Every time he went outside camp, her heart clenched and she prayed he’d make it back in one piece. Whenever he grabbed his gun off and headed for a night shift at the gates, she hoped nothing bad would happen and in the morning she’d hear his heavy boots as he dragged his tired legs through the living room and into their bedroom. 

But he wasn’t okay and it was scaring her. 

“I started working on this one before we went away” he breaks the silence and brings her attention back to him. 

Even in the pale morning light, she could make out the dark circles under his eyes the same ways she could feel his ribs through two layers of clothing or notice the light tremble of his hand holding the wooden horse

”I wanted him to have something in case I…didn’t make it back home.”

“Bellamy!” she moves her head up and gives him a look of disbelief and he finds her hand, gripping it tightly without even looking down to check where it is-he just knew. ”Please, don’t…” she begs of him and he smiles, leaning down and resting his forehead on hers.

“It’s war, princess, you know better than me that death’s a very high possibility.” he says and she’s pissed off at the calmness of his own voice as he talks about his own death. She moves her head away from him and gives him an angry look.

“Well yeah and now it’s over, so-”

“It’s never really over” he cups her cheek with his warm hand, after carefully removing a strand of hair from her cheek and tucking it behind her ear. 

He was right, technically, they haven’t really reached a real peace up there and the commander, who also had Octavia as their second, wasn’t particularly open to negotiations or making compromises. 

The fight has temporarily stopped but everyone knew it won’t last too long and since Bellamy was one of the best guards they had in camp and a perfect soldier, he’d probably be recruited and send over with a group to fight again. 

Might not be tomorrow, or next month, or even a few after that, but it was definitely a possibility. 

And the smug bastard knew she was trapped here, running the camp with Kane, making sure they had enough provisions in case a real large-scale war broke out, going to summits and trying to broker peace and with the baby coming soon again? There’s no way she could go off with them. 

“Look, if something happens to me-”

“No, don’t even say it!” she raises her voice before she realizes they had to keep it quiet, that everyone in the house and around them were still sleeping, but temporarily consumed by her anger and the fact that he was thinking about his own death, not only made her mad-they scared the shit out of her.

“Please, I know it’s hard, but I just want to say it” he begs and takes her hand in his again ”Just hear me out, princess….you know I am always the one to give in to your stubbornness, indulge me just this once, okay?” he waits for her response as she keeps staring angrily at him.

“Once. And you never get to speak of it again!” she finally utters and he smiles, not expecting anything less from Clarke Griffin. ”And keep it short!”

“Always so bossy, princess” he smiles as he keeps rubbing his thumb over her hand. 

She doesn’t say anything, giving him a few seconds to get himself together but he knows he can’t prolong this too much, it was already enough of a torture for her.  
.  
”If it happens, I know you’ll be alright” she shakes her head but he squeezes her hand tightly ”You _will be_ , Clarke. Hey, hey-” he cups her face and wipes away the tears from her cheek with his thumb ”Listen to me, there’s nothing in this world you can’t do. I want nothing else but for us to grow old together, watch our kids get married, though…let’s face it, Cassie is not leaving the house before she’s 30, at least” that earns him a chuckle out of her and he tries to give her a reassuring smile himself ”then grants us grandchildren” another tear rolls down and he fails to catch it so it ends up on his own hand, burning a hole in his heart 

”But if it doesn’t happen, if you end up having to do it all on your own, because hear me out” he leans closer to her ”You’re going to live a long and happy life” an ugly inhumane sound escapes her lips and he hates himself for doing this to her ”so, if that happens…I want you to bury me back at the dropship.”

“Bellamy, don’t, God please just stop already!” she begs of him and he pulls her head to his chest ”Please, don’t do this to me!”

“That’s it, I promise” he feels his own eyes tear up but he tries very hard to keep himself together so he wouldn’t make her even more sad ”I’m done.” her sobs tear her entire body apart and he pushes her even closer to his chest, rocking her back and forth like he so often did with Gus and Cassie when they were babies.

“I hate you” she whispers after a while and he bites his lips, knowing how mad she is still at him for doing this ”I hate you for talking like that.”

“So it’s okay when you do it, but not when it’s me huh?” he prompts a little and she looks up giving him a puzzled look ”Back after Gus was born” he reminds her and her gaze suddenly drops down ”That letter I found under my pillow the day after?”

“That was just a precaution.”

“And so is this.” he promises and leans down to capture her lips with his for a sweet long minute as the sun begins to rise and he feels the familiar heat starting to sneak it’s way around them ”I’ll always try my best to come back to you and the kids. Always.”

“Well good” she decides with a curt nod giving him a face which he so often saw her make during council meetings, meaning there was no fighting her on the matter anymore ”You are the most selfless person that I know and this was one hell of a selfish conversation.” he furrows his eyebrows at her and she leans back to rest on his chest ”You didn’t ask what I want, you just told me what you’ve planned. And for the record, that sucks.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks teasingly now, figuring out her pout was all a result from the awful scare he gave her with his words and her own way of trying to fool him into thinking she was alright ”What can I do to make it up to you?” he kisses her nose but doesn’t stop there, moving on to her cheeks and up her forehead, feeling her melt right under him and cuddling closer into him.

“Stop talking bullshit like that” she says sternly and he chuckles, his breath tickling her ear ”And maybe start taking better care of yourself.” the seriousness of her voice makes him stop and move away only so can look down at her blue ocean of sadness that he was the sole reason for. 

Her eyes got this darker shade of blue whenever she was crying, making him want to drown in it and and take all the pain away, shove it down in his own heart and carry it for her.

“What do you mean?” he asks confused and feels her hand move away his jacket and swipe up under his thin-paper shirt, ending up over his side and making his breath hitch.

“I can feel your ribs” she announces ”And not in the sexy six-pack way, Bell. In the I’m-not-eating way, which you so often complain about whenever you’re wrapping me up with your arms.” he tenses and swallows hard ”You’re always the one helping me” she takes her hand away and this time she cups his cheek and makes him look at her again ”Now let me help you.”

“I’m f-”

“Don’t say it!” he chuckles at the way she cuts him off, how can he not, she’s so adorable when she’s pissed but judging by the glare sending daggers in his direction, now wasn’t the time to fool around as much as he wished he could turn the situation in his favor.

”It wasn’t a request. You’re telling me where you want to be buried and I’m telling you I’m not letting you go down a path that might lead to you ending up in a box, do you understand?” he nods seriously now, covering her hand with his and giving her a light squeeze just so she knows he’s grateful for this.

”Okay, good, now let’s watch the sunrise.” he smiles again at her bossyness and let’s her settle comfortably in his hands while he fixes up the blanket over her bare legs, though it wasn’t really cold, but he wasn’t willing to take any risks with her. 

“Did you come up with a name?” he asks as they watch the red-orange rays swipe up on the stairs leading to their front porch. 

They’ve agreed that this time she’d pick the baby’s name, after letting him choose both Gus and Cassie’s names. She’d agreed with them of course, though she was pretending to pull a fight at first, but it was just so she could tease him and watch him get all riled up about history and constellations. 

“I did” she admits with a smirk and he gives her a surprised look.

“Really?” he moves up a little ”Well what is it?”

“You think I’m telling you?” she laughs and doesn’t move even an inch from the comfortable position she’s in ”You called our son Augustus Adonis and our daughter Cassiopea Merope, so I think I’ve earned the right to pick up whatever I want.”

“You’re not calling him Shitface or something right?” that earns him a slap on the chest but her smile is worth it and she indulges herself in the sound of his whole body reverberating with pure honest laughter. It’s been a while since he really smiled.

”Think he’ll like his first toy?” he asks seriously, as if worried about being a good enough dad, which he already was. 

She takes his hand and places it over her stomach just as she feels the baby kick.

“Oh, I know he will” she smiles and thinks about feeling calm and content for the first time in a while, wishing she could prolong this moment and stretch it to an eternity of nothing but happiness for them and the kids. 

But life didn’t work like that. It never did. And she wasn’t stupid enough to believe time would stop just for the two of them. 

So she does the only thing she can right now-grip his hand, squeeze her eyes and beg for the universe to be gentle with them and not send him away right after the baby’s born or even before that.

Miraculously, her wish is granted.

But he still leaves with a heavy back pack on his back and a pocket full of apples that she has shoved in his jacket as she send him away. Gus who was old enough to know what this means, Cassie and their little three-month boy strapped to her chest were right there with her as they watched him disappear.

They are there when he comes back too, his slumped tired figure appearing on the horizon together with the rising sun.


	5. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey, guys! So...I initially wrote another chapter that picked up from where we left off but somehow it didn't work good for me and I didn't finish it, maybe I will show a flashback in the future. What I'm posting now is well into the future, Cassie's older, so is Gus and yeah...you'll see how things changed. In a way this chapter mirrors the last one but in a different manner. I guess the chapters will be a little disjointed really, presenting different moments of their lives, with the kids being older or younger, depending on the mood I have, I suppose.
> 
> Anyway, comments and kudos are much appreciated! Thanks for reading!

“Dad?” Bellamy heard his daughter’s voice calling him and turned his head in the direction of the door right away, finding her peaking up from inside the house. 

He smiled and took another drag from his cigarette as he motioned for her to come outside. It was the middle of the night. Clarke’s been gone for a summit in Polis for three days (the longest three days of his life) and he was left juggling between work and taking care of the kids, getting a taste of what it has been like for Clarke all those years ago when he was out at war. 

To be fair, Gus and Cassie didn’t really need that much looking after anymore. Gus was turning nineteen next week and he was studying hard under his mom and grandma to become a doctor. 

Bellamy suspected he’d soon leave the house, much to his and Clarke’s refusal to accept it, since he was too grown up to live with them and a house with a bunch of kids anymore. 

He believed the only reason Gus was still lingering behind because he wanted to keep helping him and Clarke, knowing how hard it was for them to take care of River who was almost ten and little Summer who was just three and came as a surprise to the family.

Fifteen year old Cassie who was standing now before him wasn’t making things easy for them either. She’s always been a menace, ever since she was a child, but the teenage phase proved to be more than Clarke and Bellamy could take and that was saying lot, considering Bellamy raised Octavia. 

She was defiant, skipped classes, sneaked out of the house to go to parties and a few weeks back she announced she was going to join the guards, which of course came as a surprise to both Bellamy and Clarke. 

It hit him harder than it did her. He guessed in a way Clarke knew all along where this would end up but he somehow missed it and he hated himself for it. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t know she was strong or that she couldn’t take it. On the contrary-she was going to make a perfect soldier and that’s exactly what’s been bothering him-he didn’t want her to be one.

Ever since she announced her decision to ditch school, join the guards and start her training, she and Bellamy had been constantly fighting up to the point where she stopped talking to him. 

Today, after weeks of exhausting behavior, she had come home and refused to eat dinner with the rest of them. Gus was up in a second, ready to go get her and coax her into joining them, but Bellamy had put his hand on his son’s shoulder and carefully made his way to Cassie’s room (since his knee was a pain in the ass again, he was slightly limping, must’ve been the weather changing up so drastically, the spring raged on shifting between sunny days where you could be out in your t-shirt and snow covering up the fields around them). 

He had peacefully talked to her, explained that all he and Clarke ever wanted was for her to be happy and if becoming a guard what it was going to give it to her, then he’s fine with it. 

But then he couldn’t fall asleep. 

Usually when Clarke was away all the demons that plagued him came back and he woke up drenched in sweat and panting heavily, so he had come outside on the porch to smoke and try to get some peacefulness out of the somewhat warm night. 

“Can’t sleep?” he asked her as she slowly came by and sat on the other chair next to him, one that Clarke usually occupied. 

She shook her head and stared up ahead while he took another drag of his cigarette before throwing the butt away.

”Yeah, me neither.” he added and pulled up his leg on the railing, trying to elevate it a little bit since the pain was stronger that late at night.

“You okay?” she asked and her voice seemed so small and vulnerable it caught his attention and made him swallow hard. Her big brown eyes were staring at him and there was no trace of the teenage defiance there, just tiredness and worry.

“All good, kiddo, I promise.” he gave her a reassuring smile ”What’s on your mind that late at night?” she shrugged and looked away again, from this angle, she looked so much like Octavia…like his mother even it make his breath hitch. 

“I was just thinking about what you said earlier” she admitted after a while ”That you’re happy for me as long as I am happy.”

“I am” he promises again reaching out to cover her hand with his ”Listen, kiddo…I know that I can be a lot to handle, God, some days I have no idea how your mother deals with me” Cassie smiles at that ”But the only reason I was so against it, was that I just didn’t want you to go through the stuff me and your mom did.”

“But I’ll just be a guard, dad!” she raises her voice in mild protest and he smiles sadly ”I’ll run patrols and go on missions and-”

“And sometimes war” he adds and his heart skips a beat ”You’ll be a soldier, you’ll have to go out there and fight for the people in this community were there to be a conflict. Shooting at target practice and shooting at real people…there’s a big difference, kiddo.”

“I know that” he knew she did, but knowing was one thing and actually letting it sink in and living through it, a whole different matter. 

He sighs and leans back on his chair, staring up at the sky for a moment before speaking up again.

“I don’t know if you remember when I was away at war just after your brother River was born?” he asks of her and she nods, furrowing her eyebrows momentarily, not really sure where he was going with this. ”Well…when I came back…let’s just say that if it wasn’t for your mother, I might’ve not made it at all.”

“How come?” she remembers him being hurt, she remembers very vividly how he slowly came in with all the other men and he had this big bandage on his head and his shoulder was pulled in a sling and he was barely walking or even keeping his eyes opened-she’d never seen her dad that vulnerable or tired. 

But he was still her father…after he recovered, he picked her up, told her stories, played with her, braided her hair, kissed her goodnight-it was her dad, her family.

“The things I saw then…the things I did” he sighs and grips the chair’s handles as he dives back into the memories that turned into nightmares and kept him up ”They screwed me up. A lot” he looks at her and for the first time tonight she sees the vulnerability in his eyes. 

Her strong dad, her dad who could do anything, the best shooter in camp, one of the guard chiefs, a councilman, a perfect soldier…was looking at her with tears in his eyes. 

“I wouldn’t want to get up for days” he looks away as if ashamed of his weakness ”I couldn’t sleep at all, the nightmares plagued me like nothing else, I would wake up shaking, entangled in my blankets, sometimes I’d hurt myself accidentally or toss so hard, I’d kick your mother. Some nights she woke up to me sleeping on the floor, hugging my rifle.” Cassie’s mouth opens up in surprise. She never knew about that. “It got so bad your grandma had to sedate me to get sleep.”

“Then what happened?” she prompts him to keep talking after he takes a few minutes to compose himself. He shrugs and looks back at her.

“I opened up to your mom. Told her what had happened. She’d stay awake till morning just listening to me, running her fingers through my hair while I buried my face in her chest and cried. Then slowly…after a while it started getting better. I needed a routine-getting up, running, doing shifts, going hunting, chopping woods….and eventually coming home to you guys.” he smiled and reached out to cup her cheek ”It was all for you.”

“I never knew that” she admits, still taken aback by all this information while her dad shrugs.

“That was the whole point-you weren’t supposed to. I think Gus suspected, because he found me crying in the kitchen that one night after I woke up from a nightmare. But he never said anything and I told him that it was just a bad dream I had.”

“And he believed you?”

“I think so” Bellamy nods ”You know how your brother is, even back then, when he was ten, he was still a carer. He came by, wrapped his hands around me and stayed until he dozed off and I took him back to your room.” she smiles, that sounded like Gus alright.

”My point is” her dad keeps on seriously now ”I know we won’t talk you out of this, I know that…maybe it’s something in you that tells you this is the right way to go and I won’t force anything upon you or disown you for joining the guards. I think it’d be pretty hypocritical considering I’m part of them.”

She chuckles at that for a second but then he goes back to being serious and so does she.

“But…I want you to talk to us if something like this happened, okay?” Cassie nods and this time she reaches out to touch his big rough hand.

“I promise, dad.”

“Come here” he pulls her to him and she buries her head in his chest ”God, when did you grow up, huh? Only yesterday you were a baby snuggling up to sleep on my shoulder.” his voice trembled slightly at the memory of his little girl waking him up in the middle of the night and asking to sleep with him and her mom cause she was scared of the storm outside.

“Dad…come on, no need to be sappy now. It makes you older than you are” she says when she pulls back and he cups her cheek lovingly again. 

No matter what, her dad and mom always made sure to show them how much they loved them, even if they’ve spent weeks fighting about stuff like it has been with her and her dad lately.

”Plus now you have Summer to sleep on your shoulder” he nods at that ”Maybe when she gets a little older, you and mom would have another kid that I’m sure will love you as a pillow as much as the rest of us did.”

He laughs at that and shakes his head.

“I don’t know, kiddo, me and your mom are not in our twenties anymore and we still have all of you to take care of.”

“I’m just saying” Cassie shrugs ”Gus is leaving soon, though he probably doesn’t even know it yet and I’m getting older too. We’d always love to have more siblings, you know and you and mom are still young…”

“Okay, easy there kiddo.” he smiles again and he thinks she’ll pull away but instead she rests her head back on his chest and lets him stroke her head like he did when she was a little girl.

“Dad?” he hmms and waits for her to ask her question as he keeps rubbing her back after throwing his jacket on her shoulders to keep her warm ”How did you become a guard?” she came to realize recently that she didn’t know that much about him or his past. 

She knew her grandma Abby and grandpa Kane, who wasn’t her mom’s real dad, though, but Clarke had talked to them all about her ancestors or as much as she knew whilst her dad…well he talked mostly about Octavia whenever the word family came up and Cassie loved her aunt a lot but she had little knowledge about her grandma or grandpa from her father’s side. 

“Well, my mom wanted me to join so we can keep your aunt Octavia safe.” he explains and she feels him tense under her, it was obviously hard for him to talk about that time. ”So I did and…well with time I grew to enjoy it, moreover the circumstances before you guys were born…they were different.”

“What was your mother like?” Cassie asked again and look up to meet his eyes that had grown softer and somewhat sadder. ”I’m actually not sure I even know her name” she furrows her eyebrows trying to think if she remembers any of her parents mentioning it.

“Her name was Aurora” her dad says quietly and she feels the heaviness of his voice ”And she was a lot like you and your sister actually. Or you are more like her if we have to be precise.” he smiles this time ”She was a fighter, one of the strongest people that I’ve known.”

“Was she a guard too?”

“No, she was a seamstress. She worked day and night to keep me fed. Then when your aunt came, I had to drop school and help her with it too so we can have enough rations.”

“How old were you?” Cassie asks next, too curious all of a sudden.

“Six going on seven.” he says, staring up ahead, refusing to meet her eyes and see whatever it was that Cassie felt right now, not exactly sure he was ready for that. 

He hasn’t really talked about this with his children and they haven’t asked. They were used to having their grandma Abby and grandpa Kane and it seemed to be enough for them-all they knew was that his parents were dead and that was it.

“But that’s close to River’s age!” she exclaims surprised and he smiles at her confusion, shrugging it off. ”You were so young!” she adds refusing to let it go.

“It was life for us back then. I didn’t think much about it, just did what I had to keep your aunt safe.” he still was like that. He still did everything he had to to keep Clarke and his children safe, it’s who he was. 

“What would you be if the circumstances were different?” she asks way too deep in the story already to just let it go now.

“I don’t know…haven’t thought much about it. Maybe a teacher? I liked being around kids and telling stories. School has always been one of my favorite places.”

“I think mom would’ve been an artist” Cassie adds leaning back on his chest and staring up at the sky with him, thinking about all the constellations that she knew about only because her dad taught her all of them. She was getting sleepy again and he could feel her body slump in his so he tightened his arms around hers and kept her close to him.

“I think so too” he says kissing the top of her head, wishing he could stay with his little girl like this forever, wishing…she wouldn’t go off and join the guards, be send to missions where she’d be hurt or be shipped off to the other side of the country to fight a war that wasn’t hers to fight. He wishes…but he knows that’s all there is…a wish, it won’t happen, it’s not how life worked. He couldn’t protect her from the world even if he desperately wanted to. 

“Tell me more about your mom?” Cassie asks after a while with her voice already sleepy and Bellamy talks, he tells her all about Aurora reading _the Iliad_ to him before bed or how proud she was when he came home with his guard uniform or how gently she ran her fingers through his curls and calmed him down after a nightmare.

Cassie dozes off just ten minutes later and he picks her up and carries her inside as much as it actually hurts him to do so.

“Dad?” this time it’s Gus peaking up from his room just after Bellamy’s put Cassie to sleep in hers. He seemed sleepy and exhausted, the long work shifts in medbay already taking their toll on him. It’d be a while before he got used to it, Clarke assured, but he’d be fine. ”Everything okay?”

“Yes, just took care of your sister.” Bellamy assures ”Go back to sleep!”

“Is she okay?” Gus pushed, of course he did, it’s how he was and it tugged at Bellamy’s heart how selfless he was, it worried him that it’d get him into trouble one day, same way it did him.

“She fine, I promise. Go sleep you look like hell” he scolds mildly and Gus finally relents and sneaks back in his room. 

Bellamy makes his way to the kitchen and leans on the sink after taking a glass and filling it with water, drowning down his thirst. It was still too early for the sun to rise, the night was young and darkness soaked the horizon he was staring at from their kitchen window. 

He’s startled when the radio attached to his belt crackles and Clarke’s voice disrupts the silence in the kitchen.

“Bell?” she asks ”Are you awake?” he picks it up with a smile and presses the button as he moves it closer to his lips so she can hear him.

“Hey, princess. Can’t sleep?”

“No. I miss you too much guys, I just wanna come home, this trip is exhausting.” 

“We miss you too.” he promises trying to imagine where she was right now and if she was staring at the same darkness outside from a window like he was. ”You okay?”

“All good, just restless I guess. Are you guys alright? Did Cassie have another raging fit and blamed us for being too overprotective?” he smiles and goes back to the conversation he’d just had with his daughter.

“We’re fine and she’s…well, we talked, I’ll tell you all about it when you come home, but I think she’ll be alright. We’ll be alright.” he tries to reassure her but then she takes too much time to respond so he presses further ”Clarke?”

“I just…” her voice sounds too worried for his liking. He wished he was there with her, wrap her in his arms and promise her it’d be alright even if he wasn’t sure about it ”I’m scared. I don’t want her to get hurt, Bellamy. She’s still just a kid no matter what she does or says.”

“So were most of you when you were sent to the ground.” he reminds her, coming at Cassie’s defense even though just a few days ago their places were switched and he was the one freaking out while Clarke was trying to calm him down ”She’ll be alright. She’s smart and strong and she’ll kick ass out on the field, you know it.”

“I do.” Clarke’s voice crackles through the old radio ”That’s what scares me so much.”

They talk some more until Clarke’s voice gets sleepy and she passes out on him but he never goes back to bed, replaying her words in his head over and over and over again, the pain from his knee keeping him awake, his mind going through all the different scenarios of how his daughter would get hurt.

Then eventually when he falls asleep on the kitchen chair, he dreams of holding Cassie in his arms in the middle of a battlefield while she bleeds out on him. He’s all alone and helpless and he’s begging her to stay with him while she smiles and says she’s fine, a line he so often repeats to everyone else even when it’s not true, that she seems to have picked up on.

He wakes up with his shirt sticking to his body and Gus staring down at him worriedly.


	6. Kitchen floors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey, guys! So, I think I said before that I wrote a chapter that picked up right after chapter 4 and I wasn't sure if I'll finish it. Well, I did and thought I wondered a lot about it, I decided to post it. Basically, this is just what happened right after Bellamy came back home from the war. I know some of you both on tumblr and here, had some requests for me and I've written a chapter that is about Clarke being pregnant with Gus. I think I'll need to edit it some more before posting, though because I don't like it very much.
> 
> Either way, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy this one as well!

The first one to throw himself in Bellamy’s arms was Gus. 

The kid just saw his dad and didn’t care about anything else in the world-he just missed him so goddamn much. 

And Bellamy? 

As he breathed in the childish scent of his son, the smell of sunsets, playing outside, helping his mom in the kitchen, he smiled and forgot all about the pain in his shoulder wrapped in a tight bandage to his chest, or the dizziness his head wound caused him or the fact that his feet were barely supporting his own weight anymore.

He forgot all about it, he brushed it off, and pulled his son in his arms. 

The kid held him so tight, Bellamy could feel the air leave his lungs and he almost staggered just a little bit before he felt someone’s hand grabbing his elbow and steadying him up. 

When he opened his eyes, he saw Clarke by his side, their already nine-month-old son strapped to her chest, his blue eyes wide opened his hands stretching out to touch Bellamy as well.

Then the next thing he knew was Cassie wrapping her arms around his dad’s leg. 

He looks down and finds his little princess staring up at him with the brightest of smiles. 

He had missed her fifth birthday and he’d never forgive himself for not being there for her. Cassie loved a big celebration, her daddy making the cake and surprising her was always one of her favorite parts of it. 

This year Murphy has made it for her, or so Clarke’s letter had said, and Cassie tried very hard not to be disappointed by the fact that her dad was missing out on it, for her mom’s sake at least.

“Oh God, you’re all so grown up” he says and feels the tears pickle at his eyes as he kisses his son and lets him down only so he can pick up Cassie with his good hands ”My princess is soon to have her own castle, huh?” he tickles her tummy and Cassie’s giggles fill the air.

“Dada, I missed you!” she exclaims as she takes Gus’s place up and wraps her arms around his neck for a long minute ”I thought you’d never come back.”

“Oh, I’ll always come back to you, my girl! _Always._ ” he promises and kisses her cheek as she pulls away and cups his face with her small hands, giving him the same look Clarke always did whenever she was trying to figure out what exactly’s wrong with him.

“You’re hurt.” Gus announces first though, before Cassie can voice her observations but she’s quick to nod her head in agreement with her brother and that same furrow Clarke had between her eyebrows appeared on his daughter’s face.

“I’ll be fine” he promises and drops Cassie down only to finally turn to his wife and youngest son.

“Hey, you” he pulls her up to his chest, careful not to squeeze their son between them and doesn’t wait a second more before pressing his lips to hers, he’s been waiting six months to do this and he wasn’t wasting any more time. 

She smiles as she kisses him back and he feels her hands come up to rest on his chest. 

She always did this thing, where she wanted to make sure he’s alive, that his heart is steadily beating, to make sure he was really here, with her.

”How are you?” he asks her when they part and sees the dark circles under her eyes and the tired expression on her face. 

She’s been alone all this time while he was away, taking care of a baby and two kids, going to work, council meetings, negotiations and though he knew Abby and Kane helped, at the end of the day when she came home, she was all alone with three kids who needed attention and love. 

And she had to give it all to them while he was off fighting a war. 

“I’m good” she promises shaking her head at his behavior-always making sure she’s fine first, even though he’s just come from ,em>fucking war all bruised, battered and hurt. 

She had no idea how bad it was this time, he avoided the subject in his letter, always claimed he’s fine, so seeing the bandages on his head and shoulder now as well as the blood on his clothes surprised her. 

He never mentioned getting hurt, but then again of course he won’t-he wouldn’t want to worry her.

”But you’re not.“

“It’s nothing, just grazes and scrapes” he lies and leans down to kiss her forehead as a sign of reassurance ”How’s my little boy doing, huh?” he leans down to their son and smiles to him”Hey, River, hey boy! God you are so big now!” he says and kisses his son’s forehead. 

River was nothing like him. 

Or at least not on the outside. 

Unlike Gus and Cassie, who both had his hair and eyes, River’s skin tone was still darker, but not as freckly, his hair was a golden blond like Clarke’s and his eyes were and even brighter blue than hers. 

She said her dad’s eyes had been like that and whenever she looked at him, there was this sweet feeling of nostalgia tugging at her heart. 

He was a bright and smiley baby, at least for the first three months in which Bellamy could be there with him and watch him grow. 

Giving birth to him was surprisingly easier for Clarke-the whole thing lasted less than five hours and there were no complications at all. 

She was out of medbay a day after that and he was coming home with a very tired wife and the newest member of their family strapped to his chest. 

She’s picked the name since it was her turn this time and when he heard it he knew exactly why which made him blush.

_“Any particular reason you chose that?” Miller had asked when their friends had come by to congratulate them and give them presents for the baby, greet him for the first time and welcome him to the community._

_“It’s where he was conceived” Clarke explains without any hesitation while Bellamy’s whole neck and cheeks go red and he has to excuse himself to the kitchen out of embarrassment._

_He can hear their friends laughing and as he leans on the kitchen counter, he smiles too._

_He has to give it to Clarke-it was a good name and it tied the kid to the nature they so much loved and needed._

_Plus it fit him perfectly. He told her so that same night, the first night with River home with them and she had smiled proudly as he held her pressed to his chest._

_“I know I’m a genius. That’s why I’m naming the next one too.”_

_“The next one?” he had exclaimed surprised ”Princess we just had a baby, maybe we can wait a little bit until he’s grown up some, right?” he asks as he rubs his hand up and down her back, feeling her melt underneath him, her entire body was so tensed and exhausted-she needed sleep._

_“Hey it was your idea to have eleven kids, Bellamy. We gotta keep working on that.” she reminds him with a chuckle and he shakes his head._

_“It was a joke. I just thought having our own small football team won’t be such a bad thing.”_

_“I’m sensing a but there” she had moved her head up and given him a serious look ”Do you not want to have more kids or? Cause I will accept it, but I thought we agreed on having more than three and I-”_

_“Hey” he had cupped her cheek carefully and smiled ”I want to have more kids, Clarke” he promises ”Well…maybe not eleven, you know, because I don’t think your body can take on as much and I would never want to put you through what you were with Gus, but more than three? Absolutely. Maybe we can wait a little until River is at least two or three, though?”_

_“I agree” she had smiled content and settled back down on his chest ”But we can still practice you know?” she had prompted as she moved up to kiss him, drawing a sweet soft chuckle out of his lips._

_“God, you’re so much trouble, princess!” he had laughed and then dragged her over his body, feeling her wrap her legs around his waist and push herself closer to him._

He smiles now as he remembers this and lifts his gaze up to her-it seems like this was not just months, but years ago and he feels himself tired to the bones, so tired to even carry himself home. 

“This one needs stitches, Clarke” Jackson, who passes by carrying all the medical supplies back from the rover, yells in their direction and Clarke furrows her eyes back at Bellamy.

“You’re fine, huh?”

“Great” he promises, kissing her cheek once more and then making another wobbly step forward. 

He staggers, because he’s exhausted and she wraps his arm with her free hand and helps him move.

“Daddy, you alright?” Cassie asks looking up worriedly and Gus swiftly comes by his dad’s other side and takes his hand in his, attempting to help as well. Bellamy shoots him a grateful smile and ruffles his messy curly hair. 

“He’s good, but he needs to clean up and I have to patch him up, so why don’t you and Gus go to Jasper’s place for a few hours and then I’ll come pick you up when it’s all settled, okay?” Clarke explains instead of him, noticing how tired Bellamy is to even talk. 

All the weight he has managed to gain after he came back home last time, was now gone and he seemed even skinnier than before. 

His heavy backpack, the rifle strapped to his back, the guns in his two holsters, they looked like heavy rocks attached to his body that made it even harder for him to walk.

”Gus, you make sure your sister doesn’t get in trouble okay?” Clarke asks, cupping his cheek and giving him and Cassie a quick kiss on the foreheads ”Listen to your uncle Jasper.”

“Mom, most of the time it’s the other way around” Gus prompts with a lopsided grin and Bellamy smiles nudging Clarke lightly with his elbow.

“But I want to stay with you and dad!” Cassie whines, ignoring her mother’s pleads and her brother’s remarks ”I’ve missed you!” she wraps her arms around his leg again and it was the bad leg, which almost causes him to stumble again if it wasn’t for Clarke basically holding up half of his weight.

“And we’ll be all together tonight, I promise” Bellamy tries to coax her ”But daddy’s is too stinky and dirty to play with you now. Gotta get all cleaned up for my princess or she won’t let me in her room, right?” Cassie contemplates and after a second and finally gives him an uncertain nod.

“O-okay.” Gus puts his arm on her shoulder and pulls her back to him. 

He was only ten but he already seemed so much more mature to Bellamy. He hated that this war wasn’t changing only him, but his entire family alongside it.

”But tonight we’ll play!”

“Cassie, dad’s tired. We’ll play together.” Gus intervenes and Bellamy tries hard to push his tears back. 

His son has always been the only one beside him able to tame Cassie’s stubborn streak and convince her to do stuff that she doesn’t always want to do.

“We will” Bellamy promises, though he has no idea how he’ll stir up the strength to do that. 

Cassie runs off away, seemingly content but before Gus can follow after her, Bellamy grabs his shoulder and pulls him back a little.

”Hey, son” he cups his cheek and lifts his head up ”I’m proud of you, you know?” Gus nods, a smile spreading on his face and after Bellamy lets him go he runs off after his sister but glances to his parents and his youngest brother a few more times.

“God, they are all so different.” he mumbles as his attention turns back to Clarke who’s now prompting him to keep going. 

The sooner she got him home, the faster she could check on his wounds and make sure he was alright. 

“Gus’s been a great help to me. He takes care of Cassie when I have to feed River, helps me out with dinner. That one time I caught him trying to chop wood in the backyard and I almost passed out at the sight of him with an axe in hand” she explains as they make it to their front porch. 

Bellamy stops for a second, feeling a wave of dizziness overwhelm him and grabs the railing with his only good hand. 

Clarke stops suddenly too and even River who’s until that point blabbing his baby sounds and moving his hands up and down trying to reach his mom’s hair, goes silent.

“You okay?” she asks carefully and he nods but doesn’t open his eyes again for another minute. When he does, he seems even paler than before but he tries to give her a weak smile in reassurance and they take on the steps, which prove to be harder than he initially thought for him. 

Once inside, she first rushes to put River in his crib near the couch in the what they called a living room and then goes back to help him take everything off of himself.

“I’ll fill the tub with hot water so we can clean you up and then I’ll patch you up, okay?” she says and helps him get to the couch where he settles down sitting ”Maybe you can lay down for a while?”

“No” he shakes his head ”If I do I’ll fall asleep and you won’t be able to get me up.”

“How long has it been since you last got rest?” she prompts as she moves around dragging out the tub from the back porch and moving it inside, looking for buckets to fill up and stir the fire so she can warm enough water for him.

“I think a day before we left off for home” he explains and carefully takes down the sling strapped to his neck and leans back, sighing tiredly. 

”How’s everything been around here? Tell me what I missed.” 

Of course he refuses to talk about anything that happened there. She doubted it will be any time soon he opened up about it, but she’d give him his time. 

Though they’ve achieved peace, finally, the war was long and bloody. Arkadia lost over a hundred people in it and the atmosphere around here was sullen and tense for the past few months. 

She can only imagine how hard it was on the battlefield and judging by his look, it was devastating. 

“Well Gus is obsessed with growing his plants for this project at school” she explains as she fills some of the tub with cold water and feeds the fire so she can warm the rest and mix it together.

”It’s for his biology class. One has to be under constant light, the other in the dark, I think the third should be listening to music so he takes it outside whenever Monty and Jasper gather around the fire and use that old guitar you found with Miller in the bunker.”

“That must be giving you a headache?” he prompts and she chuckles.

“Sometimes. But it’s still fun for him. He says it’s his strongest one of them all. Jasper jokes it’s because he’s secretly pouting moonshine in it.”

“He’s not!”

“Oh…I think he actually is.” she assures him as she moves around, picks up clean clothes for him, his old clothes, as well as some extra towels, the soap and fresh bandages. 

Watching her going around, fussing all over him makes him feel guilty, but he’s missed this-he’s missed seeing his wife moving around their home, doing magic.

”But he’s been a real help for me around the house.”

Bellamy’s breath hitches at that, he never wanted that for Gus, he never intended for him to grow up too fast or help too much with the chores. 

He was supposed to be a kid, live through his childhood, be happy. And now that he was home, he’d make sure that’s exactly what happens. He just needed a few days to get back on his feet.

“And Cassie?” he prompts as he watches her dig through her med bag for some supplies. 

The winter was fast approaching and he knew there would be stuff to do around the house-the south side of their roof was leaking, he had to chop enough wood for them to have for the coldest months, the kids needed new clothes, so he’d have to hunt and trade with the Trikru villages nearby for pelts, he’d need rations so they could feed River properly and give him extra vitamins when the flu season kicked in. 

He knew Clarke has worked hard to stay on top of everything, but her trying to juggle between work and the kids must’ve been a nightmare.

“She’s fine, getting in trouble. Loves spending time with Kane when you’re not here. She stole his baton the other night and accidentally shock lashed him.”

“Oh God!” he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that. 

His girl was a real fighter, that much was clear. 

If Gus was headed off to maybe become a doctor one day like his grandma and mom, then Cassie seemed to be unfortunately following in his footsteps and he prayed hard that with time her interests would swing in another direction. 

He definitely didn’t want her to one day end up on the battlefield like he had.

”She asked him to teach her how to fight but of course it all ended up with them on the floor, messing around, her climbing all over him and trying to “overpower” him. It was really funny.” she explains as she finally takes the water from the fire and pours it in the tub.

”Come on, I think this is almost ready. Let’s take those clothes off of you.”

She helps him remove his jacket, careful of his shoulder which is where he’s been shot barely a few days ago, just before the fighting seized and the word peace started floating around. 

Then comes his shirt, which is not really resembling one anymore. At the reveal of his skinny body covered in bruises, she almost gasps-he looks like hell, all broken and covered in now dirty and bloody bandages, loosely wrapped around his ribs and his shoulder. 

He shivers as she takes his clothes off, stripping him down to his underwear and helps him get to the tub near the fire so he could be warm enough while she helps him scrub off the dirt and sweat off his body.

All the while he asks questions about the kids, prompts her to talk more about herself and how the camp matters are going and she does, she tells him everything. 

She tells him about Cassie and Gus coming to ask if they can sleep with her when they have nightmares or even when they didn’t, just because they didn’t want her to be alone in the bedroom with just River sleeping in his crib nearby. 

She tells him about arguing with Kane over sending more medical staff and reinforcements on the battlefield while she washes off his hair with the fresh soap and her hands slide down his bruised back, his breath hitching every time she touches a particularly nasty blue spot. 

She tells him how every time she got a letter from him, she waited until everyone in the house was asleep so she could settle down near the fire place and read it in peace, imagine where he was now, trying to picture how he looked like or what he felt.

By the time the water’s cold and he’s all cleaned up, River starts stirring and wakes up from his afternoon nap so she has to go pick him up. 

She places him on his chair next to them near the table while she starts patching him up. 

His shoulder wound still bled even after the bath, so it was a struggle for her to close it up but she made it and she wrapped his head wound only after she gave him a hair cut. 

The tight white bandage she tied over made his face look even paler. 

“I thought he wouldn’t remember me” Bellamy says when she gets on shaving him. 

He wanted to do it himself but his hands shook too bad for him to hold the blade and he joked he might accidentally slash his throat so she took it upon herself.

“Of course he remembers you, Bell, you’re his dad.” she assures as she watches Bellamy place his hand over Gus’s chair and lets him play with his fingers, making funny faces whenever Clarke wasn’t holding the blade up to his face. 

He was slowly starting to come back to his old looks, but he still seemed exhausted and way too weak for her liking.

“It’s been so long” he says absentmindedly ”I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again. Some nights I laid down on the ground, stared at the stars and wondered if you were awake now, maybe feeding him or if you were telling Gus a story or if Cassie was begging you for a midnight snack” he smiles as he meets her eyes.

”I don’t want to be away from you guys ever again.”

“I know” she says gently cupping his freshly shaven cheek ”You won’t be.”

He sighs and lets her clean his face from the soap with the towel. She buries her fingers in his now shorter curls and he pushes his head to her chest.

“You’ll be alright” she whispers as she feels him wrap his arms around her torso and pull her closer. 

Clarke feels something wet her shirt and she knows it’s not his still-damp hair-it was his tears, so she holds him like this, all broken, confused and completely shaken after everything he’s been through for as long as he needs all the while her heart clenches and aches with every shallow breath his draws and every time his shaky hands tries to hold onto her a little tighter. 

“Come on, let’s get you to bed, alright?” she suggests and though he tries to fight her, she succeeds in taking him to their room and tucking him under a bunch of blankets. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next time he wakes up, it’s because something’s touching his cheek and when he opens up his eyes and actually manages to focus, he finds River’s hand patting his head and looking down at him, with his toothless smile, his chin full of drool. 

“Ba-ba-ba-baaaa” he blabbs and Bellamy smiles as he moves up.

“Hey, big boy!” he greets him as he leans on the bed board and manages to move the baby to his stomach.

“If you pull a stitch, you’re dead, Bellamy!” Clarke’s threatening voice echoes as she enters the bedroom with a bowl of what seems to be steaming soup and some water in hand.

“How did he end up here?” Bellamy asks instead while she places the food on the nightstand and settles next to his legs giving him a tired smile.

“I left him sleeping next to you. He wouldn’t settle down for a while so I figured I try this. He cuddled to your side and dozed of five minutes later after I struggled for half an hour before that.”

“And when is the last time you slept?” he asks attempting to stretch his bad arm, forgetting for a minute that there’s a hole in his shoulder which results in him biting back a groan and her scolding him.

“Dad?” Gus’s voice interrupts him before Clarke can give him an answer, peaking from behind the door. ”Can we come in?” he asks tentatively, with Cassie clinging to his right side.

“Gus, you dad has to eat and rest.” Clarke tires but Bellamy cuts her off.

“Come on in, champ.” Gus almost shrieks with joy as he rushes in and a second later he and Cassie are up on their big bed finding a place on both his sides.

”How are you guys doing? Did you have dinner? Do your homework?” he points the last question at Gus who nods eagerly. 

They are in their pajamas already which meant he slept a lot more than he initially intended to and it was close to their bedtime. 

“Daddy, tell us a story!” Cassie begs while Clarke moves up to pick crawling-to- the-edge of the bed River and puts him back in the middle.

“A story, huh?” he carefully lifts himself further up, his whole body is aching all over again, feeling as if on fire. 

Gus apparently notices because he carefully places his hand on his dad’s elbow.

“Does it hurt, dad?”he asks seriously and Bellamy hurries to shake his head but before he can actually answer Gus turns to his mom ”Maybe grandma can give him more painkillers? Or we can re-wrap his bandage and lifts his hand higher, so it would hurt less?”

“Gus, I’m fine” Bellamy promises cupping his chin with his good hand ”Stop worrying so much over nothing, okay?”

“But you look like uncle Jasper after he’s spent the night drinking!” Cassie chimes in too, her eyes staring at the dark circles under Bellamy’s eyes. ”Are you drunk?”

“God, no, Cassie, daddy’s just tired, okay?” Clarke cuts her off ”And he really needs to rest, so he can recover. Why don’t I tell you a story tonight?”

“But daddy’s are better!” Cassie protests and the minute she sees her mom’s surprised face she sinks down the bed ”I mean…”

“What do you mean better? I’ve been telling you stories all these months and you said you loved them!” Clarke protests like a petulant child herself and Gus comes to his sister’s rescue.

“It’s not that we don’t love them, mom, it’s just….you usually fall asleep five minutes later.” he attempts at giving a reasonable explanation as he snuggles closer to his dad’s side and Bellamy ruffles his hair again. 

Kiddo was affectionate. Sometimes he felt like just because Gus was the eldest one, they didn’t show it too much to him anymore but the kid still needed it so Bellamy took every chance he got to kiss his forehead, hug him, tell him he’s proud of him, so he wouldn’t feel left behind. 

“Come on, everybody settle down, I’ll tell you a story and then you’re all back to your beds, okay?” he tried to find a comfortable position himself and Clarke hurried to shove a pillow behind his back so he would feel better. 

He let Cassie cuddle on his good side, her head resting on his chest and Gus on his bad side, his head on his stomach, so that his ribs won’t hurt too much.

He tells them the story of Jason and the Argonauts and one of their numerous adventures which has always been Cassie’s favorite. She falls asleep somewhat ten minutes later but Gus remains awake till the end, though his eyes start drooping too. 

“Come on, time for bed!” Clarke says when she leans down to grab Cassie, but Bellamy’s hand ends up on her wrist, squeezing it tightly.

“No, leave them here. It’s been forever since we were together. I miss them.” he admits and there’s this strange light in his eyes, there are tears.

“Bellamy” she shakes her head and as much as she’d love to indulge him, now was not the time ”You’re hurt, you need rest. When you feel better they can sleep here, okay? But not tonight.” he sighs and she removes the hair from his forehead before she picks Cassie up and she snuggles on her shoulder with her thumb stuck in her mouth. 

She was still more or less a baby and the way her curls fell on her forehead made Bellamy smile. 

But Gus. Gus wasn’t a kid. Not as much anymore at least.

“I’ve missed you, dad” he mumbles sleepily as he pushes his head closer to Bellamy’s side, his arm falls over his dad’s chest and Bellamy wraps his small body closer to his own, feeling how much Gus craved affection right now.

”Mom’s been too sad without you.”

“Yeah?” Bellamy prompts knowing Clarke would never tell him the truth about how it was for _her_ while he was gone. 

She’d talk about the kids and what they did, but she’d never tell him the truth about herself. So he saw this as a chance to find out more about it and he didn’t want to lose it.

“Yeah…she’d read your letters by the fire place and cry.”Gus’s voice gets even more sleepy but he opens his eyelids just halfway and glances at his dad ”She never knew that I saw her but I did.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through it, buddy” Bellamy rubs his hand up and down his son’s back and kisses the top of his head ”But now I’m home and everything will be alright.” Gus smiles and leans back down on his dad’s chest. 

“Don’t ever go away again.” he utters finally ”Please.” at that he finally gives into his exhaustion and passes out. 

Bellamy has to bite back his tears when Clarke comes to pick Gus up and carry him to their room before she joins him in bed when it’s all good and settled down.

They talk a little but she’s pretty tired too and she falls asleep mid-sentence.

He soon follows and though he craves for a sleepless night, he doesn’t get it. He wakes up yelling and tossing in bed, scaring the hell out of Clarke and waking River, who’s sleeping in his crib next to them, which results in the baby crying his guts out for half an hour before he can calm down again.

It keeps happening for the rest of the week.

And then the next one.

And then the next.

On the third week, Clarke wakes up to him sleeping on the floor, hugging his rifle and using his jacket as a pillow.

During one of his sleepless nights, Bellamy drags himself to the kitchen and sits down on the cold floor,and leans on the drawers just so he can cool his sweating body. 

Sometime later, Gus finds him and realizes that though he’s physically here, his dad isn’t back home.

Not really.


	7. Stairs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey, guys! This is yet another chapter a little further into the future when River is already six and Gus is sixteen. It focuses mostly on them and Bellamy. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks to all of those who are reading and leaving me comments and kudos, it's much appreciated and keeps me going!

“Come on, buddy, follow my voice!” Bellamy urged his youngest son as he finally sat down on the bottom stair of their backdoor porch, feeling his knee cracking a little at the motion ”That’s great, Riv! Keep it up, you’re almost here!” he added as he glanced up at his six-year-old whose wide almost blind blue eyes were trying to find their way back to him without any other help but his hearing.

Bellamy’s heart often broke at the sight of his boy like that.

They figured something was wrong with him when he was about two years old. 

It was Clarke who started worrying first when she would hold him and he would raise his hands to grab hers but missed it every time. 

Bellamy felt like maybe she had a point, that they need to go to her mom or Jackson and have him checked up (not that she couldn’t do it but when it came to something serious concerning their kids, they preferred Abby there too. And this was serious.) and though his heart clenched when they took little River to medbay and he prayed to whatever was out there in the universe that maybe granted wishes as desperately as he’s ever had, it turned out Clarke had a reason to worry.

Somehow they haven’t noticed it when he was born despite him having regular check-ups, mostly because his sight was a lot better then, but it turned out that with time it has seriously deteriorated. 

Abby couldn’t give them a precise answer as to why this is happening to him. The planet was soaked with radiation still, many babies even in their camp were born with diseases, mutations or didn’t even survive long enough to meet the world. 

It happened, it was not his or Clarke’s fault…it’s just the way it was. 

When she told them he’d probably be completely blind before he reaches his tenth birthday Bellamy squeezed Clarke’s hand harder than ever while she turned around and buried her head in his chest. 

He pressed her to his heart and held her there while she cried and Abby took River for more testing, leaving them alone in the room. 

He knew he had to keep it together, to be strong for her, for them and that’s what he did. He tried to help her calm down and promised her they’ll figure it out even though he had no idea where to even begin from.

Later that same night he woke up from a nightmare, which happened at least once a week, went outside to smoke and finally let all his tears go. 

In the morning he picked himself up and ever since that day he’s been fighting for his son harder than anyone with the exception of Clarke.

Of course that didn’t mean he forgot all about Gus and Cassie just because River was sick. 

On the contrary, he tried to spread his love equally for them all and while Clarke took the news about their youngest son harder than expected and tried to cushion his every fall, followed him everywhere and had at times problems letting him out of her sight for five minutes, Bellamy was surprisingly the opposite.

He was trying to teach him how to live in the world without being able to see it. The more River grew, the less he was able to see and his condition was deteriorating faster than initially expected so by now, for him the world consisted of big blurry shadows or colors here and there that made no sense to him whatsoever. 

So Bellamy pushed him. 

He found a man from a village close to them, a grounder who has lost his sight when he was younger during a fight and he asked him all the questions that he had. 

He even took River there once or twice a month because it was easier when the man showed him some stuff rather than Bellamy trying to explain them. 

Bellamy got him a stick to use when he was walking, urged him to rely more on his hearing and his ability to touch so those senses can get stronger and so far he’s been really succeeding. 

Clarke often told him that he’s so good with River that if she was starting to get a little bit envy. 

It was her motherly instinct to try and protect him from everything out there, she’d catch him before he falls, grab his hand and take him to his room while Bellamy let him fall and though it resulted in bruises or cuts, it made him better. 

He taught him how to find his way to his room without bumping into walls and helped him memorize all the paths that lead to and from their house in case he got lost in camp and there was no one to help him. 

It was hard but he was trying and River was actually getting better and better at it.

“Great, you’re doing amazing!” Bellamy boosted him as he moved up to the last step ”Now count the steps and you’ll reach me.” River was right in front of him dressed in his brother’s old black shorts and blue shirt that was a little bit too big to him. 

He was a scrawny kid but he was extremely bright and he asked so many questions that even Bellamy had troubles answering them sometimes. 

“One” River’s sweet childish voice echoed all around him. He gripped the railing on his own, without his father needing to tell him and made his steps ”Two” 

Bellamy stretched his arms for a hug though River would never see that.

”Three!” the boy felt his dad’s strong arms pulling him up to his chest and soon he breathed in the strong scent of gunpowder, woods and tobacco.

“You did great, buddy! I’m proud of you!” it’s what he always said and River wrapped his small arms around his dad’s torso before pulling away and raising his hands to Bellamy’s face.

“You haven’t shaved” River pointed out and Bellamy chuckled as he let his son’s hands roam his face. 

He loved doing that and though it got Bellamy a little ticklish, he still bit it back and let him do it.

“No, your mom seems to like the beard.”

“You know she doesn’t!” his hands moved up to his eyes and felt his dad closing them for a second so his hands can move around them ”What is the color of your eyes, dad?”

“Mine are a deep brown, buddy.” his dad answers with his deep, a little hoarse voice.

“What does brown feel like?” River asks next in his typical manner. 

Since he couldn’t see anything, he usually asked Bellamy what something felt like. He tried to memorize the answers and every time his dad asked a question, he’d have the answer blurted out in seconds.

“It feels like…” his dad always took his time with his answers, trying to come up with the most accurate description he could so Riv can get the best idea of what he meant.

”It feels like warmth. Like you know how when the sun comes out through your window in the morning and the rays fall on your face and you feel this sweet touch on your cheeks that makes you want to sleep for five more minutes?”

“Yeah!” River agrees enthusiastically ”I love that.”

“Me too, buddy.” Bellamy ruffles his hair and leans do give him a kiss on the forehead. ”Do you know what color yours are?” he asks next instead, provoking him to remember what Bellamy had told him before.

“They’re blue like mom’s.” River answers eagerly.

“And what does _that_ feel like?” Bellamy prompts as River leans on his chest, getting a little tired, probably ready for his afternoon nap.

“Like the river down the hill that I’m named after” River repeats the exact words Bellamy has used to describe it. His ability to memorize so good were blowing both him and Clarke away.

”When you put your hand in the water and feel it run through your fingers and you get that chilly but nice feeling at the bottom of your stomach, that’s blue.”

“Good job, buddy.” 

Bellamy runs his hand up and down his back and for a minute there they remain like this, a father and son, sitting on the higher step of their backdoor porch in the quiet summer afternoon, letting the silence wrap them in a sweet bubble where there were no problems to solve and no things to worry about-just them, a little tired, somewhat sleepy since Bellamy’s had only night shifts in the last five days and River has just had an exhausting hour of learning and following his dad around the back of their house, memorizing every corner, every step, every blade of grass so he would be able to move around on his own.

“Dad?” Gus’s voice startles Bellamy who’s really started to doze off like this and he looks up to find the troubled face of his son peaking from the back door. 

Clarke used to say that sometimes she glances at him and her breath hitches because he looks so much like Bellamy when he was younger that on couple of occasions when she was too tired or calling them from another room, she mistook one for another.

“Hey, Gus” Bellamy furrows his eyebrows a little when he sees him there ”Weren’t you supposed to be training with your grandma all afternoon?” he asks hoping that he didn’t misunderstood or forgot about something, he hated if that happened.

Gus had just started his training five months ago and he was doing extremely well, getting praises from both Abby and Jackson, but Bellamy knew that despite him being extremely patient and always understanding, it was…hard for him with Clarke there. 

It couldn’t have been any other way. She always wanted the best for him, but training under your mom and grandma was never going to be a walk in the park and Gus knew it and took it as yet another challenge on his path to becoming a doctor, but it seemed that it was proving to be harder for him than he initially thought.

“Grandma was busy with surgery” Gus explains coming by to sit next to his dad and River who was already completely asleep in Bellamy’s arms. 

His sweet figure slumped forward and his face resting over his dad’s chest with his mouth opened and him already drooling a little. 

It never seized to amaze Gus how much his dad loved them all. Never.

“But your mom’s there too, right?” Bellamy prompts a little and Gus looks away, sighing and trying to figure out how best to explain the way he felt. ”You guys got into a fight or something?”

“She just won’t let me do things on my own, dad!” Gus raises his voice all of a sudden expressing his bottomed up frustration but quickly remembers that River is sleeping and tones it down, throwing his dad an apologizing look.

”She threats me like a baby! I know how to wrap a twisted ankle, it’s not a open heart surgery for god’s sake, but she just have to come and lecture me all about it while I am talking to the patient who by the way was fucking Dean Williams from my math class and who’d have probably told the entire school already that I’m a momma’s boy who can’t wrap an ankle.”

“First of all, don’t say fucking, you’re still sixteen if I remember correctly!” Bellamy scolds mildly and watches his son blush up and utter a nervous “sorry” under his nose which almost makes Bellamy smile and he would’ve if he didn’t have to be serious right now.

”Second of all” he reaches out to put his hand on his arm and squeeze it gently until Gus is brave enough to look up at him again ”I know this can’t be easy for you, having both your mom and grandma there to train you, it must be tough, but” he smiles at him ”At the end of the day, they just want you to be better, Gus.”

“I know that…” Gus sighs and stares down at his feet again ”I don’t want to get mad, but sometimes it’s just so…”

“Frustrating?” Bellamy suggests and Gus nods. ”Why don’t you talk to your mom later, huh? Tell her what you don’t like her doing, explain yourself and how you feel. You know she’ll listen to you.”

“Yeah…I know” Gus smiles and Bellamy squeezes his shoulder once more.

“And if Dean Williams says anything you can tell your class he passed out after a five mile run during guard training the other day so…” Bellamy winks and Gus chuckles ”You’ve got some stuff up your sleeve too.”

“Thanks, dad.” Gus says and Bellamy reaches out to cup his chin and move his head up. 

He was growing up so fast, only yesterday Bellamy was holding him in his arms crying and raging in the middle of the night because he was teething. 

And now what? He already had his own stubble growing on his cheeks. 

His boy was no longer a little kid.

“Hey” Bellamy says ”No matter what happens, I want you to remember that you can do anything, okay? I know you, Gus-you’re smart, resourceful and I’ve seen the way you take care of people-you can do this.” Gus smiles gratefully at his words.

”But if it gets to be too much or if it doesn’t make you happy there’s nothing wrong with giving it up and doing something else, alright? Me and your mom will always have your back.”

“I know that” Gus promises and when his dad lets go of him he scoots closer, seeking comfort like a little kid. 

Bellamy wraps his free arm around his shoulder and pulls him to his chest. For a second there, Gus’s heard is right next to River’s sleeping face and suddenly, he feels better.

”But I like helping people. It’s what I want to do. And if it takes having to deal with my mom…momming me I’ll get over it.” Bellamy chuckles at that and his chest reverberates with his laugh but it doesn’t stir River at all, if anything it makes him snuggle even further into his dad’s chest while Gus finally pulls away.

“You’ll be alright” he adds ”I know it. Just talk to your mom and figure things out like the grown people that you are. God knows you are both a little too stubborn for your own good.”

“Alright” Gus agrees and they stay like this for a while sitting on the porch all together and talking about random stuff like the weather or how was work for his dad or what was new in medbay and Gus finds himself getting calmer. 

Who knew that coming back home and talking to his dad would solve all the problems?

“You know what?” Bellamy says after they spent a few seconds losing themselves in their own thoughts. ”I think it’s time I taught you how to shave, what do you say?” Gus’s entire face lights up at the suggestion.

He’s been trying to figure out how to ask him but was too embarrassed to do so. 

He even spied on his dad the lat time he was shaving in the backyard. Bellamy always took off his shirt, got a bucket of cold water, the knife that was always strapped to his belt and some of the soap uncle Monty made and sat near the old resemblance of sink they had in the backyard to shave. 

He didn’t even use a mirror most of the times, he would look at his reflection in the water every now and then but he mostly did it without any help.

Of course sometimes he’d let his mom shave him. 

She seemed to like doing that when she had the time and Bellamy would sit on one of the old wooden chairs, lend her his knife and let her work on it. 

Then she’d usually trim his hair since he didn’t like it getting too long but he also was too lazy doing it himself so it was not until Clarke protested about it looking like a fucking bird nest that he’d relent and let her take him outside with the scissors in hand.

“That’d be great, dad!” Gus answers and helps Bellamy get on his feet with sleeping River still in his arms. 

Together, slowly, so as not to stir River up, they go inside.

A few hours later, Clarke comes home to find Gus freshly shaven with some pieces of toilet paper stuck to random places on his face where he’d accidentally cut himself and the sight makes her both smile and cry.

Her boy was no longer a little kid.


	8. Dandelions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I've not been having much inspiration lately but because the last few chapters were really sad, I decided to write something somewhat happier. I hope you guys enjoy it despite it being a total disaster. Here's Gus learning how to walk. :)

“Come on, Bellamy, don’t be such a baby!” Clarke yelled from the water, urging him to join her with the rest of their friends. 

They’ve decided to spent some time down the river and drown the summer heat that was exhausting them to no end. 

Miller and Jackson were already in the water, splashing each other eagerly, Harper was perched on Monty’s shoulders and Clarke, his beautiful Clarke, was staring at him waist-deep in the water with her arms crossed on her chest, pouting at his lack of enthusiasm.

It’s not like Bellamy wasn’t hot and didn’t want to feel better. 

It was just that he wasn’t a big fan of the water. Never has been.

Even as a kid he only got to shower for maximum of three to five minutes and he never told Clarke that but after they landed, during one of his hunting trips with Miller and Roma, he had fallen in the river and almost drowned. 

Thankfully his best friend had taken him out before he had taken in too much but the experience still made him shake. He never told Clarke out of embarrassment and he had sworn Miller to secrecy, so there was no one else to give him up but now that posed another problem-he had to pretend that everything was fine when it wasn’t. 

On top of that his one-year-old son who was currently wriggling impatiently in his hands was the biggest water fan there was. 

But Bellamy was still worried about getting him in there and that only made the entire situation all the more harder for him.

“Are you sure he’ll be fine in there? Not too cold?” Bellamy asks as he approaches the water. 

Gus is staring back at his mom and reaching out his hands already. He was usually the calmest, most patient baby but recently he’s been the most energetic ball of sunshine. 

He was on the verge of learning how to walk on his own and he refused to be carried around too much. 

The other night he’d made Bellamy circle around the kitchen 34 times (he counted) with his dad holding his hands and his little feet patting all over the place.

Clarke had laughed from the couch as she went through documents and plans for the upcoming summit in Polis. 

Bellamy had eventually swept his son off his feet and carried him to her when he felt the world spinning but Gus wouldn’t sit in one place. 

Once on the couch, he’d started walking all over, climbing on Bellamy or Clarke’s back, tugging his parents’ hairs or munching on their clothes (for some reason that was a thing for him, or maybe it was because his teeth were still growing up and he needed something to soothe his gums) before eventually his head fell in his dad lap and he had fallen asleep.

“You know he loves when we bathe him, he’ll be fine. Plus the water’s perfect.” Clarke reassures as she steps forward, suddenly a little too emotional about Bellamy being the most worrying dad in the universe. 

He’s been a little better lately, at first after Gus was born, he wouldn’t let anyone hold him unless they had washed their hands at least three times right before his eyes but with time and her assurance, he had gotten better. 

Still, seeing him like this, holding Gus to his bare chest, their son a complete copy of his dad, with his already sweet messy curls (though shorter than Bellamy’s) and freckles all over his tan skin, made her heart jump with happiness and joy.

It was such moments she asked herself if this was really happening to her.

Gus squealed when Bellamy dipped his tiny feet in the water and she laughed. For a minute there, he was scared and his tiny arms wrapped tighter around his dad’s neck.

“DA!” he exclaimed and Bellamy rubbed his back with his big hands. 

He had sewn Gus’s bathing suit which he made from an old dress of hers and she had to admit the red material with the little white flowers made Gus look even more adorable.

“Don’t worry, big boy, it’s fine, see mom’s here” Bellamy’s calming voice however didn’t make Gus any less afraid and he kept pushing his own body closer to his dad ”Look, the water’s calm, it’s a little cold but you’ll feel great once you’re all in, I promise” Bellamy kept reassuring and smiled at Clarke as he got deeper in the water, wincing a little when his bad leg went over a particularly slippery rock and he almost lost his balance but managed to quickly regain it.

He glanced at Clarke and tried to give her a reassuring smile, knowing how much she still worried though it’s been months since his accident. 

He understood her, though, he worried about her as well. 

The relatively big incision on the left of her stomach from the surgery she had after Gus was born still made him shiver but whenever he looked at it, or touched it while they made love, his heart only grew bigger-his wife was the most badass mother on this earth and his son and he were happy to have her.

“DA!” Gus yelled again when they went a little deeper and now his little knees were in the water. 

Bellamy was finally at the same level as Clarke’s though the water was reaching her breasts now while he was only waist deep in the river.

“Hey,hey, Gus” Clarke came and touched her son’s back and when he turned around his big brown eyes were full of unshed tears.

”Come on, don’t be afraid, I know you love the water.” she leaned down and kissed his nose which usually had a different effect on him but not it only made Gus’s pout even bigger. He was about to start crying and Bellamy felt it so he looked at her helplessly.

“Dip him all the way in.” she ordered and Bellamy’s eyes grew wide.

“Clarke are you-”

“Dip him!” he rolled his eyes at her bossiness but listened to her, kissing his son’s head one last time before taking a deep breath and sinking down for barely a minute and surging back out. 

Gus was so stunned at first he hasn’t realized what was actually happening. His hair was wet and tiny drops were falling down his face when he looked confused between his mom and dad and…

And then he smiled.

No, he didn’t just smile, he laughed.

A happy squeak filled the air around them and all their friends who were splashing and playing in the water stopped to look at them. 

“You liked that, huh?” Bellamy asked, prompting him a bit ”Wanna do it again?” he didn’t wait for an answer before he sunk in and then surged back up. 

Gus laughed even harder now and raised his hands in the air happily.

“Told you he’d love it!” Clarke nudged Bellamy’s shoulder and he rolled his eyes pretending to be annoyed at her.

“Oh, please, do you always have to say it? Can you be the bigger person for once?”

“Nope!” she laughed as a child herself and splashed some water to his waist, making Gus stare at them with confusion and interest all at once. 

“I’d say your boy’s gonna be a swimmer, huh?” Miller joined in next to Clarke and helped splash some water on to Bellamy’s back.

“Not you too!” Bellamy protested as he moved away from them, Gus still blabbing his baby sounds in excitement.

“At least I won’t have to save him from the water!” the minute Miller let the words out, he regretted it and he looked worriedly at Bellamy who was biting his lips.

“What does that mean?” Clarke prompted, suddenly stopping in the middle of splashing Bellamy again and giving him and Miller a curious look.

“Nothing, old story” Bellamy brushed it away and thankfully Gus helped him change the subject when he tried to push some water in his mom’s direction with his tiny hands.

“Oh, that’s war, you two!” she had played along but Bellamy knew she won’t drop it judging by that stubborn light she had in her eyes and he took a deep breath, trying to brace himself for it.

All their friends joined in, running and splashing each other around. 

At some point Clarke got up on Miller’s back and Raven on Jackson’s and they played around until Clarke fell down and got her entire self wet. 

Gus was adorable enough to actually cry out when he saw it, thinking she had gotten hurt and Bellamy’s heart filled with pride at his son’s selfless caring nature, that he was sure would one day get him into trouble.

“Maaama!” his bottom lip trembled and his little hands reached for her, the unshed tears from before were finally falling down his big cheeks ”Mama!”

“I’m here, I’m right here” she reassured and swam to them swiftly, reaching out for Gus when she finally made it there. 

Bellamy carefully gave him away and their little boy snuggled on Clarke’s chest and his small hand reached out to touch her cheek.

“Mama!”

“Yes, I’m right here.” she promised and kissed his forehead.

“I’m starting to get jealous” Bellamy pouted as he circled around and came from behind them, wrapping his big arms around her waist and pushing her to him ”But I am glad he’s as big of a fan of you as I am.”

“You know, when we have a girl one day, I’m going to be the jealous one because I know she won’t ever leave your embrace” Clarke whispers when he leans down to give her a kiss on the cheek. 

He loved being here with them, it was like their own little heaven where he didn’t have to worry about Clarke overworking herself and not eating enough or getting new clothes for the rapidly growing Gus or lying about having dinner already just so he can fill Clarke’s plate with half his meal and Gus’s bowl with the other. 

For the first time in a while…he felt peaceful.

“You are very certain that we will” he says staring ahead while her head leans on his chest and Gus’s leans on hers respectively. They must look really funny from afar but he didn’t care-this was his family and he’d hold them up in his embrace forever if he could.

”I don’t want you to get hurt again.” he adds when she scrunches up her forehead and looks at him confused.

“I won’t” she cuts him off and he swallows hard ”Bellamy, I won’t. With Gus, it was just unexpected, it wasn’t supposed to happen and it won’t happen again.”

“You don’t know that.” he says a little more sternly than he wanted to ”I’m not losing you.”

“Bellamy” she moves away from his and reaches out to cup his cheek ”You’re not going to lose me.” he sighs and looks away, refusing to fight with her now ”You will not!” she keeps pushing when she sees he’s not convinced ”I realize that there’s no way for me to know that but I am not going to live in fear just because something went wrong while I was giving birth to Gus. I want more kids, don’t you?”

“You know I do, that’s not the point” he tries to keep his voice even but it cracks and he has to look away to hide his tears, not that he ever did that with her but he just didn’t want to get her all upset now when they were having a good time.

”I just-” he takes a deep breath and shakes his head as if trying to chase away all the bad thoughts, refusing to ever voice them out of fear they can become reality.

He doesn’t realize when she surges up and kisses him. He lets himself get lost in her for a few seconds until Gus’s hand pats at their cheeks and he looks at them grumpily. 

He always did that when they were taking too much time kissing.

“Ma!” he exclaimed again and crossed his arms over his chest just like Clarke. Bellamy laughed at that ”Gus might look like him on the outside but his character was so much Clarke it hurt.”

“Someone’s jealous.” she chuckled ”Think we should apologize?”

“Damn right we should” Bellamy smiled back and they both simultaneously leaned down and gave Gus a kiss on both cheeks making him squirm with happiness.

“Hey, love birds, time for lunch!” Miller yelled and they turned around only to find all their friends already on the shore, spreading the blankets and taking out the food they’ve brought. 

They hadn’t even realized when they had left the water, both of them drowned in their own happiness to notice anything else.

Gus protested a little when they took him out, he’d clearly grown to love the water even more but they managed to prevent another crying fit when they sat down with their friends and started feeding him. 

He was obviously starved and Bellamy made sure to give him some of his sandwich too while Clarke pulled up a t-shirt over him and wrapped his lower body in a light blanket since a chilly breeze had appeared all of a sudden, making the heat a little more bearable on the shore. 

Once they’ve all eaten and talked, most of them laid down on the blankets. Bellamy settled next to Clarke with Gus already falling asleep on his chest while she pulled out her sketchbook and started drawing.

“You not gonna rest?” he asked quietly as he touched her elbow and she looked behind her shoulder smiling, her hair only wet at the edges now, the burning summer sun drying it out in barely half an hour.

“No, but you should. You’ve only worked night shifts this week, I know you are exhausted.” she ran her hand lovingly through his curls and rubbed their son’s back. He nuzzled closer to his dad’s shoulder as he exhaled tiredly, his eyes already drooping hard.

“I’m fine” he promises with a squeeze of her hand but he feels himself falling though he loved nothing more than watching her draw for hours upon end. 

Her lips touched his forehead before he completely dozed off and he smiled, feeling more content than he’s ever been in the past few months.

He wakes up from Clarke shaking his shoulder and calling his name.

“Bellamy! Bellamy, get up!” there’s an urge in his voice and he bolts sitting right up blinking rapidly and trying to chase the sleep away and focus on her face. 

The weather’s gone a little colder, evening was surely approaching and he wondered how long he’d slept.

“What is it?” he asks confused, looking around himself to find most of his friends playing with a foot ball just a few feet away. 

He must’ve been the only one who overslept, but he’s been so exhausted after this week that he felt like he could take a month off and it won’t be enough.

“Look!” she grips his shoulder tightly and points before her. When his vision finally clears up and he realizes what she’s showing him, his breath hitches.

“Oh my god!” he exclaims, his jaw dropping a little, his eyes welling up with tears while he looks at his son, standing on his own, holding a bunch of dandelions in his hand and smiling back at his mom. 

He makes a wobbly few steps and stops again, squating down to pick another flower and add it to the bunch in his fist. Then he raises up again and looks proudly at his mom and dad as if waiting for their approval.

“He’s walking!” he looks at his wife ”Clarke, he’s walking!”

“I know!” her voice is as emotional as his is and she quickly finds his hand and squeezes it. 

His heart is beating so fast, it feels like it’s going to burst and he knows he must be having the most stupid grin on his face, but he doesn’t care that he looks like a complete idiot with tears streaming down his face.

His son was walking.

“I was sketching when he woke up and started crawling around me” she tells him ”Then at some point I looked up and there he was, standing on his own, walking around and picking flowers. I woke you right away, knew you wouldn’t want to miss this.”

“Not for the world” he promises and leans down to capture her lips with his for a loving kiss. 

When he pulls back he nudges his nose with hers and feels her move her hand up to his cheek, brushing away the tears of joy.

“I love you” he says and she smiles, giving him another quick peck ”I love you and him more than life itself, more than the world, more than the entire universe and every goddamn thing there is out there.” he blurts out and her piercing blue eyes meet his, her breath catches in her throat

”You and him” he adds ”You are my everything.”

“Damn you, Bellamy Blake, you always know how to make me emotional” she scolds a little after he catches a lonely tear coming down her cheek and wipes it away ”I love you too.” she adds and kisses him again. 

“DADA!” Gus’s cheerful voice interrupts their sweet moment and Bellamy turns back to his son, finding him waving his small bouquet in their direction and taking another few wobbly steps before stopping again.

Bellamy stands up and moves right before Clarke, spreading his arms to his son.

“Come here, big boy! Come to dad!” he urges him and Gus doesn’t have to be told twice.

He starts walking too fast, almost running in Bellamy’s direction, which is a sure way for him to end up on his face. 

And he almost does, his wobbly feet betray him when he’s a few steps from his dad’s embrace and he starts falling forward.

But he doesn’t.

His dad’s strong arms catch him before he can hit the ground and Gus is safely pulled to his chest.

He doesn’t realize it in that moment, he has absolutely no idea that his dad would always be there to catch him when he’s falling.3


End file.
